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JESSUP 


NEWTON FUESSLE 

Author of •'Gold Shod” and •‘The Flail” 



BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
Publishers New York 




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Copyright, 1923, hy 

Boni and Ltveright, Inc. 


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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


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Principal Characters 

JESSUP, a sensitive, ambitious woman 

HELMAN, a carpet weaver 

MRS. HELMAN, his wife 

TOM KEMPER, a youth 

NORDAHL, a theatrical director 

FRANZ SADNER, an orchestrator; 

IVAN BANNING, an architect 

MRS. BANNING, his mother 

DORIS BANNING, his sister 

DANIEL J. MURRAY, f firm of 

i Murray, Cooper 

B. F. COOPER, (_ gj Banning 

CHARLES SALANT, a producing manager 
A PHOTOGRAPHER 
AN ART DEALER 
HERBERT DODGE, a social nobody 
THE ANCESTOR, a portrait 
THE PICTURE OF A WOMAN 
AN ARTIST 



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JESSUP 

CHAPTER I 

Against one wall of the Helman kitchen stood an 
enormous built-in Dutch cupboard. Its multitude of 
shelves, bins, crannies and compartments was brooded 
over by a hospitable fragrance of ginger, nutmeg, 
vanilla, and brown sugar. It was one of those kitchens 
of elder days built for elbow-room and comfort. When 
coal-burning ranges had invaded the ancient domain of 
the open fireplace, the frugal, thrifty mistress of this 
kitchen had hired a mason to fill in the fireplace against 
wintry draughts, and had placed her range smack in 
front of the hearth. The walls were calcimined a 
dark blue and displayed calendars bearing the Imprint 
of various merchants, insurance agents and banks of 
the town, which was located In the western part of the 
state of New York. On the floor lay odd strips and 
squares of rag carpet that revealed an amazing mixture 
of colors, for Helman was a carpet weaver, and even 
the halls and closets of the plain-looking frame house 
were generously equipped with examples of his cunning. 

Mrs. Helman was standing at the old-fashioned 
granite sink, washing the supper dishes. She was 
an elderly woman, with a kindly, bulky face, and heavy 

I 


JESSUP 


feet and Hands. Her broad back and hips bespoke a 
lifetime of laborious lifting and stooping. She paused 
in her dishwashing, reached for a long-handled wire 
container filled with odds and ends of soap, and swished 
it about in the warm dishwater. Then she proceeded 
impassively with her washing. 

“Jessup should help you with the work,” said Hel- 
man, the weaver. 

His wizened little figure was not blessed with the 
ample proportions of his wife. He wore a pair of 
deeply wrinkled bedroom slippers, baggy cotton trou¬ 
sers, and a funny-looking little coat. From his dingy 
teeth projected a short-stemmed briar pipe, and with 
a dingy finger he poked at its contents. The heavy 
blue tone of the kitchen walls had the effect of dimin¬ 
ishing still further the meager pigment of his pale blue 
eyes. He had a grayish complexion, and a dry, per¬ 
sistent, bronchial cough. 

“Jessup should help you with the work. What’s 
she doing, anyway?” 

“Jes-5M/>.^” called Mrs. Helman. 

Footsteps caused the floor of the girl’s bedroom 
above the kitchen to creak. 

“All right,” came an agreeable, answering voice. 
“Just a minute.” 

“Where are you? Come down an’ help your 
grandma I” piped the old fellow in a voice meant to 
be severe and authoritative. Having issued the order, 
he put on his spectacles and went poking into the sit¬ 
ting-room in search of the weekly edition of his Albany 
newspaper. 


JESSUP 3 

Descending footsteps presently sounded on the 
stairs. They were quick, light footsteps delivered by 
a pair of small and animated feet as unlike those of her 
grandmother at the sink as any pair could well be. 

“I didn’t know you had started,” said Jessup cheer¬ 
fully, entering the room. 

“Didn’t you hear me?” asked Mrs. Helman. 

“No, I must have had my door shut,” replied Jessup, 
taking a dish-towel from the cord behind the range, 
and reaching for some of the dishes that were stacked 
in the wire dripping-tray. 

The girl appeared to be sixteen or seventeen. Her 
face had a more sensitive structure than those of either 
of her grandparents, and her coloring was extraordi¬ 
narily fair. Her brooding eyes were almost purplish 
in color; her walnut eyebrows were untrained; and her 
dark, fine hair hung In a thick braid. The short, slight 
nose ended In nostrils that flared Impulsively. Her 
teeth were bright and even, and her mouth was thought¬ 
ful. Her chin promised to mature into either stub¬ 
bornness or charm. There was a simplicity about her 
inexpensive dress, and Inherent good taste was dis¬ 
closed by the absence of cheap finery. Her figure was 
lithe and slim and straight. Her Immature hands 
were rather large and showed the bones of her wrists. 

“Why did you put your hat on? Was you going 
out again?” inquired her grandmother. 

“Just for a little walk.” 

“Who with?” 

“Xom Kemper.” 

The old woman scraped some egg-stains from a 



4 JESSUP 

fork. Her bulky, red hands seemed entirely content 
to spend their lives in dishwater. 

“Are you wiping them good?’’ she asked in a mono¬ 
tone, 

“Yes, indeed,” answered Jessup lightly. 

“Use a little elbow-grease. I guess you’d rather 
sew, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Helman was thinking of 
the praiseworthy skill at needlework that Jessup had 
developed at the convent. 

“I wouldn’t want to sew for a living,” was the 
prompt reply. 

Mrs. Helman did not speak for a moment. Labori¬ 
ous thoughts were moving through her awkward 
brain. 

I “You shouldn’t be so stuck up, Jessup,” she said 
finally. 

“I didn’t know I was,” returned Jessup agreeably. 

A plate slipped from Jessup’s fingers and crashed 
on the floor. 

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, chagrined. “I 
don’t know what made me do that.” 

“You hadn’t ought to be so careless,” complained 
her grandmother. “That’s one of our Sunday plates.” 

Jessup stooped and picked up the broken pieces in 
silence. 

The grandmother said fretfully: “I’ll finish wip¬ 
ing. You can empty the garbage.” 

Jessup drew a pail from under the sink with her 
foot. 

“Pick it up. Don’t be so dainty,” said the old 
woman impatiently. Accustomed all her life to kitchen 


JESSUP 5 

drudgery, she viewed these evidences of Jessup’s fas¬ 
tidiousness with concern. 

The girl seized the pail and carried it out through 
the yard to the rank wooden garbage-box in the alley. 
She emptied it and then, fastening the wooden picket- 
gate behind her, started thoughtfully back to the house. 

The smoky, goldish haze of a September twilight 
illuminated the quiet neighborhood. Asters of red 
and lavender grew in the dry soil of a small, round 
flower-bed. The vegetable garden was largely 
stripped; dry beanstalks clung to their props; a patch 
of potatoes showed signs of recent spading; the pun¬ 
gent smell of tomatoes came to Jessup’s nostrils. 
There was a cherry tree in the yard and a few maples 
and ash. From their boughs issued a quiet autumnal 
rustling, a sort of chant of resignation. The voices 
of the trees reminded Jessup of the somber groves and 
towers of her convent. She had never been quite able 
to comprehend why her grandparents, who were Bap¬ 
tists, should have sent her to a convent. At any rate, 
she was through with it now, and in another week she 
was to take up fourth-year work in the local high 
school. 

“Why don’t you bring the pail in, Jessup?” called 
Mrs. Helman from the kitchen. 

“I’m coming,” called the girl. Her tone mingled 
impatience and indifference. Her mood this evening 
contained nebulous elements of revolt and resignation. 
She felt peculiarly restless. Intangible forebodings 
were troubling her. 

“Bring me the pail!” called Mrs. Helman again. 


6 


JESSUP, 

Recalled from her reverie, Jessup skipped up the 
steps and into the kitchen. j 

“What was you doing out there?” asked the woman 

dully. 

“Nothing.” 

“You don’t keep your mind on your work any more, i 
You ain’t much of a help, are you?” 

“There are some things I like better,” said Jessup 
good-humoredly. 

She began helping with the table, which was now 
being set for breakfast. The teaspoons were placed 
in their glass holder In the center, and the three plates 
were laid face downward, each in Its place over Its 
knife and fork. The supper crumbs brushed off the 
table-cloth, and the table set for the next meal, Mrs. 
Helman unfolded a somewhat smaller table-cloth and 
laid it over the top, Jessup assisting. Jessup was in¬ 
variably a trifle depressed by the custom of keeping the 
table perpetually set. Its covered appearance always 
reminded her of a communion service. 

“Don’t stay out so late to-night,” said the grand¬ 
mother, covering a pan of biscuit dough. 

“We were just going for a walk,” replied the girl. 

The woman hooked the screen-door, then asked: 
“Did you say It was that Kemper boy?” 

“Yes.” I 

“Where are you going?” 

“Oh, just around. Where In goodness’ name could 
we go in a town like this?” demanded Jessup. 

“Ain’t there a lawn social at the M. E. to-night?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know. I wouldn’t go, anyway.” 








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7 


JESSUP 


The front doorbell rang. 

“I guess that’s him,” said Mrs. Helman. 

Jessup took a final look at herself in the kitchen 
mirror, and started for the front of the house. As 
she passed, the weaver said, without taking his eyes 
from his paper: 

“See that you don’t stay out late to-night, Jessup.” 

“Of course, I won’t. You all seem scared to death 
of a little walk. You’ll leave the door unlocked for 
me, won’t you, grandfather?” 

Helman grunted an affirmative, and added: “We 
want you to be careful, Jessup.” 

“I will,” she answered with annoyance, and was 
gone. 


It was about ten o’clock when Jessup and her com¬ 
panion returned. The street was dark. There was 
a touch of coolness in the September air, and a smell 
of vegetables, and of dying grass. The locusts, which 
had chanted continuously all evening, seemed to have 
charged the air with a baffling, inexplicable note of re¬ 
proach. An overwhelming depression filled the girl. 

“What makes you so quiet?” asked the youth finally. 

“I don’t know. Am I?” 

“You haven’t said a word for about five minutes. 
Do you hate to go back to school? Is that it?” 

“I don’t know what it is,” answered Jessup. 

“Aw, that’s no way to be. You want to cheer up.” 

“I’ll be all right,” said Jessup with an effort. 
“Good night.” 


8 JESSUP 

“Good night,” said the youth. “See you to-mor¬ 
row.” 

Jessup lingered for a moment In the front yard. A 
few half-dead leaves, fallen before their time, rustled 
crisply to the ground. The girl could feel the coolness 
of the earth through her shoes, and felt a sudden, un¬ 
reasoning impulse to throw herself on the ground and 
give way to tears. 

But the front door was thrown suddenly open, and 
Jessup saw the round-shouldered figure of her grand¬ 
father standing in the lamp-light. 

“Is that you out there, Jessup?” he asked impa¬ 
tiently. 

“Yes.” 

“What are you doing?” 

“Coming in.” 

“IPs high time,” said the carpet weaver. “Your 
grandma is worried.” 

“Worried? What about? It Isn’t so late.” 

“It’s nearly midnight,” was the surly answer. “And 
it’s got to stop. I’ll tell you that. Come In here, 
Jessup. You’ve got to have a talking to.” 

Helman led the way Into the sitting-room. His bed¬ 
room slippers made a shuffling sound. The family 
clock tapped the hour of ten. 

“You don’t have to talk to her to-night,” called 
Mrs. Helman from the bedroom. “It’s so late.” 

“I’m going to talk to her to-night,” answered Hel¬ 
man sternly. “Sit down,” he said to Jessup. Al¬ 
though he himself remained standing, he was not at 
all an awe-inspiring figure In his funny little patched 


JESSUP 9 

coat and ridiculous trousers. But there was a look 
of unaccustomed severity in his pale blue eyes, and 
his complaining voice disclosed a threatening edge. 

“Who was you out with?” he demanded. 

“Tom Kemper. You knew I went out for a walk 
with him.” Jessup looked at Helman with a puzzled 
and belligerent look. 

“I don’t want any back-talk now. Remember that.” 

Jessup’s grandmother, apparently aware that the 
moment had come for proceedings of more than casual 
importance, entered in her felt slippers and flannel 
night-gown, and sank into her rocking-chair. Jessup 
looked inquiringly at her, but the old woman’s eyes 
were averted. 

“It’s too late for a girl like you to be out. I don’t 
like it,” resumed Helman critically. “The first thing 
you know someone will get fresh with you. Do you 
hear?” 

“Grandpa I” protested Jessup, straightening up and 
looking squarely into his pointed gaze. 

“Your grandfather knows best,” said Mrs. Helman. 

“I’d like to know whatever put an idea like that 
into your heads?” demanded Jessup defensively. 

“Never mind what put it in our heads,” piped the 
carpet weaver. “I want this running around in the 
middle of the night to stop. Do you hear?” 

Jessup was bewildered at the suddenness of the at¬ 
tack. There was a formality about it that hurt her 
deeply. “I don’t think it’s necessary to talk to me 
like this. Don’t you think I’ve got any sense?” 

The weaver came a step nearer. His grayish face 


10 JESSUP 

had grown a shade paler. He pointed a dingy finger 
at the girl and said: 

“You’ve got to be careful, young lady!” 

Jessup caught a vague, disturbing emphasis in his 
tone, something insinuating. 

“I don’t think that’s fair,” she retorted. Her be¬ 
wilderment Increased. She looked from her grand¬ 
father to her grandmother, and again the latter’s eyes 
were averted. 

“Was It fair, or wa’n’t It?” demanded Helman, turn¬ 
ing to his wife for support. 

The woman nodded gravely. 

“Don’t you tell me I’m not fair with you. Do you 
hear?” said Helman to Jessup, whose eyes met the 
other’s In silent challenge. 

The carpet weaver stiffly began buttoning his short 
little coat over his funny-looking little stomach. 

“Fair?” he went on. “I ain’t never been anything 
but fair with you. Have Ij ma?” 

His wife shook her head. 

“I tell you you need to be careful, Jessup. Extry 
careful. There’s reasons for it. Reasons you don’t 
know, Jessup.” The weaver cast portentous eyes at 
his wife, whose only answer was a heavy sigh. 

“Reasons?” demanded Jessup curiously. “What 
are they, I’d like to know? I’m sure I don’t know 
what you’re all talking about.” Again she looked 
from one to the other. 

Helman stood confronting the girl uneasily. He 
fidgeted with his buttons. He dreaded to go on. 


JESSUP II 

When he spoke again, there was a whining quality In 
his voice. 

“It ain’t a nice thing to be a-talking about,” he con¬ 
tinued. “It’s caused your grandma and I plenty of 
bad nights. I can tell you that, Jessup. An’ don’t 
you think we ain’t prayed for you.” 

The girl looked at him sharply. “Prayed for me?” 
she inquired In tones that bit. “What for? What 
are you talking about?” 

“That’s why we sent you to the convent—for all 
that the neighbors thought it was a funny thing for a 
Baptist to be a-sending you down there to a Roman 
convent. It wasn’t us that wanted it that way. It 
was your mother who wanted It. It was the last thing 
she kept askin’—for us to send you to a convent—to 
a Catholic convent. It was the training she wanted 
you to have, an’ the Influence, so that you’d be more 
protected an’ looked after.” 

A faintness was creeping through Jessup’s body. 
The color was leaving her face. She felt the pressure 
of some mysterious accusation sweeping in upon her 
from all sides.- Her tongue and mouth were dry. 
Unable to frame a reply, she stood waiting. 

“You see,” continued the carpet weaver solemnly, 
“there’s blood in you that ain’t—that ain’t all good.” 

The girl flinched involuntarily. She stood staring 
at her grandfather with incredulous eyes. Her breath¬ 
ing quickened and suddenly her voice returned. 

“Who are you talking about? My father?” she 
burst out. “So that’s it I So that’s why none of you 
ever told me a word about him I” 


12 


JESSUP 

She stopped as abruptly as she had begun, her out¬ 
burst checked by a nervous little current of hysteria. 
She clenched her hands and stiffened her arms to re¬ 
gain control of herself. When she spoke again, her 
voice was low and her words came rapidly. 

“Now that it’s come up, there are a lot of things I 
want to know. I’ve got a right to know. I tell you 
I’ve got a right to know. You’ve kept it from me 
right along, and I won’t have it any more. Do you 
hear? I won’t have it any longer! I’ve got to know 
about my father. And you’ve got to tell me. I want 
to know who he was. Listen to me I Who was he ? 
What did he do?” 

The weaver recoiled before the dramatic tumult 
of questions. It left him speechless. He stood look¬ 
ing dumbly at Jessup’s white face, at the burning in¬ 
tensity of her eyes. 

“Answer me!” demanded the girl, her voice thick¬ 
ening into almost a choke. 

“I can’t answer you. I only wisht I could,” said 
Helman tragically. 

“We don’t know, Jessup,” quavered her grand¬ 
mother. Her rocking-chair creaked mournfully as it 
swayed to and fro on the rag rug. 

“You don’t know?” echoed Jessup blankly. Then 
she turned with a sudden ferocity upon the weaver. 
“You don’t know? Look here,” she said in a quiet, 
inexorable voice, “I tell you I want to know. I’ve got 
to know, and you’ve got to tell me!” she said rapidly. 
“I don’t know a thing about him. I’ve laid awake 
nights wondering. I’ve laid night after night thinking 


JESSUP 13 

everything under the sun. I don’t know who he was 
or what he was. I tell you I can’t stand it any longer. 
I’ve got to know!” Her voice grew louder. “I 
don’t even know his name!” Her voice rose into a 
scream. “Why don’t vou tell me? Why don’t you 
tell me?” 

The old man was .rembling. His face looked 
pinched and dusky. It was a moment before he could 
find his voice. “Be quiet, Jessup,” he said hoarsely. 

The old woman, rocking violently, was crying. 

“I’ll not be quiet! I’m going to know! I’ve got 
to know. Why do I go by the name of Helman? 
That’s another thing I want to know. It’s not my 
father’s name. It’s my mother’s name. Why do I 
go by the name of Helman?” 

The carpet weaver’s face grew duskier. When he 
answered, his voice was muffled and husky. 

“Listen,” he said. “Your mother was a hard girl 
to manage. She was what you’d call wild. I don’t 
know what it was about her. We couldn’t do any¬ 
thing with her. Could we, mama ?” Again he turned 
to his wife to confirm his words. 

“It didn’t seem like we could do anything with her,” 
responded the other in gloomy lamentation. 

“She run away from us,” continued Helman. “She 
run away from home. It was a couple of years before 
we knew hide nor hair of where she was. Then we 
heard she was in St. Louis.” 

The old fellow’s voice broke. There was a piteous 
look in his pale little eyes. A considerable portion 
of the misery of the whole world seemed to be lodged 


14 JESSUP 

there. He pronounced the words “St. Louis” as if 
there was something unclean about them. 

Mrs. Helman was moaning. 

When the weaver resumed, it was in a whisper. 
“It wa’n’t that so much. We could of forgiven her 
for running off. It wa’n’t that. It was the kind of a 
place she was found in.” 

Jessup looked in nervous bewilderment from the 
weaver to her grandmother. These incoherent state¬ 
ments only added to her confusion. 

“What makes you both act so queer?” she ques¬ 
tioned. “Where was my mother? What was she 
doing?” 

The weaver’s answer was sharp. “You’re too 
young to hear about such things.” 

“You’ve got to tell me. You’ve got to tell me. I 
won’t be put off any longer I” 

Helman cowered before Jessup’s demand. Seeing 
that there was no escape, he answered: “You see, she 
was wayward. She had her mind set on fancy clothes. 
We couldn’t seem to manage her, could we, ma?” 

“What did she do?” asked Jessup impatiently. 
“Where did she go? Who did she marry?” 

“That’s just it,” said Helman with a groan. “She 
wasn’t married. She went to a place that wasn’t nice. 
A place that was wicked.” He sent a terrified look 
toward the old woman. “A place too wicked to talk 
about.” 

It was Helman’s tone almost more than his words 
that made Jessup understand. She gave a terrified 
'start. 

i. 


JESSUP 15 

‘'It wa’n’t our fault, was it, ma?” cried Helman, 
turning to his wife, who was sobbing loudly. 

“Then who was my father? What kind of a man 
was he? What was his name? Where is he now?” 
asked Jessup hysterically. 

“We don’t know, Jessup. We don’t know any¬ 
thing about him. He might be any one of a lot of 
men. I didn’t want to tell you,” pleaded Helman in a 
whining voice. “You hadn’t ought to made me tell 
you.” 

Jessup’s brain grew numb. 

“I hadn’t ought to told you,” Helman kept saying 
in a stupid monotone. “But you dragged it out o’ me. 
I guess the man, whoever it was, never even knew you 
was born.” 

Jessup’s face was colorless. 

“I hadn’t ought to told you,” mumbled Helman 
monotonously. 

A red fog seemed to Jessup to have surrounded 
her, blinding and choking her. The floor seemed to 
give a plunge, but she was faintly conscious of grop¬ 
ing through the kitchen and up the creaking stairs to 
her own room. 

There she found herself finally, sitting on her bed 
in the dark. Outside her window, the leaves were 
chattering briskly in the rising wind, and after a while 
she could hear the grumbling of rain on the roof. The 
smell of the rain had a refreshing effect upon her, and 
she wondered what time of night it was. Through 
the thin floor she could hear the ticking of the kitchen' 


i6 


JESSUP 

clock, and when it struck she was amazed to discover 
that it was only eleven o’clock; she seemed to have 
lived interminably since ten. 

The darkness had a comforting effect; she felt that 
she could not have endured the presence of any light. 
The thought of sunlight was almost maddening. Even 
gaslight was unthinkable. Jessup felt as if she could 
not bear to look at herself again, and the thought of 
being seen again by her grandparents was revolting. 

Her one thought was to get away. She knew she 
must go where she could be among strangers. She 
thought of her suitcase in the closet, of the articles to 
be packed in the suitcase, of the cotton umbrella with 
its doubtful joints, of the money in the bottom drawer 
of her bureau. 

She inhaled deep, long breaths of the rainy air, and 
listened to the rain pounding the roof, and to the 
water streaming through the eaves trough. She re¬ 
membered that there was a train that stopped at the 
station at a little after one o’clock. She had heard 
its bell many times at night. She did not know where 
the train went, but that did not matter; she had to 
get away. 

She imagined herself creeping cautiously down the 
stairs with her bag and umbrella. She suspected that 
the creaking of the stairs would reverberate through 
the house and rouse its people, but perhaps the down¬ 
pour would keep the noise from being heard. She 
fancied herself crossing the kitchen with its familiar 
smells of cistern water, dish-cloths and stale tea. She 
would turn the key very quietly, unhook the screen 


JESSUP 17 

door, and let herself out. Then she would keep to 
the grass to avoid the sound of footsteps on the side¬ 
walk, and hurry to the station. She remembered the 
smelly kerosene lamp in the station. Perhaps the 
train went to Buffalo, perhaps to Albany, or even to 
New York. 

The thought of these places churned through Jes¬ 
sup’s mind and brought to the surface a sediment of 
old dreams and longings. Her reveries had often pre¬ 
sented remote, romantic visions of going to Buffalo, 
or Albany or New York. But to-night, facing reali¬ 
ties instead, her speculations were pointed and prac¬ 
tical. What could she do in Albany, or Buffalo, let 
alone in New York? How could she get along? 
Where could she stay? 

The rain, driving against the roof, also drove ques¬ 
tion after question into Jessup’s mind, ominous ques¬ 
tions driven in with a hollow ring, and finding no solid 
inner walls of experience in which to imbed themselves. 
She discovered that her notions of a city were nebu¬ 
lous. For all her repeated dreams of going, she had 
the small town’s inherent suspicion of the city. Haunt¬ 
ing, inherited phantoms of suspicion and surmise 
pressed into her thoughts. Perhaps she had better 
wait awhile, better put off the departure until she was 
better prepared. 

But instantly she dismissed that wavering alterna¬ 
tive. She could not imagine herself sitting down to 
another breakfast with her grandparents. After what 
had happened to-night, she never wanted to see them 
again. 


i8 


JESSUP 

Surely she could make her way in the city. There 
must be something she could do. At least she would 
be able to find some sewing. Surely some dressmaker 
or milliner would give her work until she could pre¬ 
pare herself for something better. Maybe she could 
sing. And now, with a hint of an earlier radiance, an 
old idea rekindled—a longing for the stage. Born 
in a moment of restlessness and caprice, the dim idea 
had occasionally blossomed into sturdy petals, heavy 
with languorous and mysterious perfume. 

To-night the gorgeous effulgence of the half-forgot¬ 
ten caprice began stealing luminously into Jessup’s 
meditations. It began flooding her with a peculiar 
eagerness and expectancy. The old fitful, fugitive 
dream of making something of herself revived. 

A golden mist seemed to be drifting out of the dark¬ 
ness and surrounding her with a velvety glamour. Her 
feeling of bitterness resolved itself into a thoughtful, 
conquering, little smile. She felt singularly unlike the 
Jessup of a moment ago. (More than twenty years 
before, in this house, and room, almost at this same 
hour, Jessup’s mother had been carried away by the 
same vague but glamorous dream of becoming an 
actress.) 

The spell of the resurrected ambition was envelop¬ 
ing Jessup in soft and comforting folds that were pe¬ 
culiarly soothing, yet subtly stimulating. Sanguine 
visions of fame, assembling themselves out of obscur¬ 
ity, were tracing enchanting images in her mind. She 
could hardly recognize the tall, proud image of herself. 
A distinguished, conquering image it was, of majestic 


JESSUP :i9 

stature clothed in bright robes. With a prescient 
inner ear she could hear a rush of music. She seemed 
to be surrounded by lofty spaces; behind her was 
towering scenery. The music stopped and gave way 
to a tumult of applause. Jessup wondered if she was 
destined for grand opera. 

An outcast, she would refuse to hide her face and 
be afraid of the world. She would straighten out her 
destiny into a daring lance. She felt reckless, formid¬ 
able, and invincible. 

Now she was listening again to the rain drumming 
the roof, an^d wondering whether the train was headed 
east or west. Perhaps she had better strike out first 
for St. Louis, and search for traces of her mother. 
Jessup felt a sudden morbid curiosity to see the town 
where she was born. She wondered with a shiver if 
the house she was born in was still standing. Maybe 
she could get some trace of her father. What- kind 
of man could he have been? 

Jessup heard the clock strike twelve, and realized 
that she would have to begin packing. The rain kept 
falling continuously. She would have to take the 
clumsy cotton umbrella that she had always hated to 
lug. Now she was making a mental inventory of the 
articles she meant to pack in her suitcase, and real¬ 
ized that it would not begin to hold them. Well, it 
would have to do; she had no other bag; she would 
send for her trunk later. She imagined herself writ¬ 
ing for her trunk after she got settled somewhere. 
She would write briefly, formally, impersonally. Per¬ 
haps it would be better to telegraph; that would be 


20 


JESSUP 

more businesslike and impressive and impersonal; yes, 
she would send a telegram for her trunk. 

She foresaw that there was likely to be consternation 
in the house to-morrow when they discovered her ab¬ 
sence. She could see Helman buttoning and unbut¬ 
toning his funny-looking coat. She could see him 
shaking his dingy finger into space, denouncing her as 
an ingrate. She could see her grandmother washing 
the breakfast dishes solemnly, her bulky face disturbed 
and sober. She imagined her people writing beseech¬ 
ing, perhaps threatening letters, insisting that she re¬ 
turn. But she was determined never to see them again. 
They had tried, in their way, to be good to her, she 
supposed; but what had happened to-night left her 
no alternative but to escape. 

Wondering if there were any matches in the box, 
she began to rise. But the floor gave a creak, and she 
became motionless. The rain seemed to be diminish¬ 
ing a little. If she waited awhile, perhaps the rain 
would stop, and she would not have to lug the umbrella. 
She listened intently. No, there was little prospect 
of the rain stopping. She shrank from starting out 
through the rain. And it was growing colder. 

She still wondered which way the train was headed, 
and if she could get some sewing to do, and how she 
could contrive to get on the stage. Again her ambi¬ 
tious dreams were surrounding her with golden 
mists. . . . 

At dawn Jessup was still seated on the edge of her 
bed. 


CHAPTER II 


On a bland and sunny morning in April, more than 
five years later, Jessup stood at the rail of a Hudson 
River ferryboat. Its wheel was churning the green 
water into a brownish foam. Jessup’s face was turned 
toward the solid crags and towering summits of New 
York’s skyline. The sight of it almost took her breath 
away. Her hands tightened their hold on the rail. 
The immensity of the city gave her a sense of panic. 
The unexpected beauty of the spires and masonry of the 
downtown thicket of skyscrapers charged her with a 
strange, inexplicable terror. This astounding beauty 
that stabbed the sky seemed to condemn her for her 
own littleness and inconsequence. Slowly it began re¬ 
viving her fugitive early dreams of high achievements. 
She remembered the rainy night when she had sat 
until dawn on the edge of her bed, drugged into inac¬ 
tion by her dreams. She thought of the drudging, sal¬ 
low years she had spent in Buffalo. She was thankful 
that she had not married and sunk into still deeper 
and more stifling drudgeries, and was glad that she was 
here at last, at the gate of New York. 

Already her brain seemed to be expanding into 
something of the dimensions of the dizzy heights 
ashore. There seemed to be a cruelty, a heartlessness, 
about those heights. And yet their spaciousness was 


21 


22 


JESSUP 

a challenge to the will to expand, a challenge to the 
imagination to flame. These towers and spires and 
incredible fagades were resolving themselves into a 
sort of chant. She felt the force of a rhythmic lift. 
It addressed her in immense but unintelligible whis¬ 
perings 

The impassive, inscrutable spires and cornices and 
lofty roofs took on an air of unreality. There was a 
kind of freezing remoteness about them. Jessup 
could imagine herself pounding with bleeding knuckles 
at unyielding gates. 

The crying of a baby finally broke in upon the spell 
and attracted Jessup’s attention. A bare-headed, mel¬ 
ancholy-eyed mother held the infant in her arms. She 
had the heavy hands and the rust-colored skin and the 
smell of a truck-gardener. She offered no comfort¬ 
ing chatter, but only held her baby tightly in her mus¬ 
cular arms; and as Jessup stood looking at them, her 
thoughts wandered back over dim, distracting trails, 
and her face grew stern. 

The fragility of seventeen no longer characterized 
Jessup’s face. In its place was a thoughtful slender¬ 
ness, lit by coloring of marked fairness. It was an 
interesting face, wide at the eyes, poised with an in¬ 
quisitive eagerness, a changing face whose beauty 
deepened one moment and grew dimmer the next. The 
compact lines of her hat betrayed a flair for dress. 
Her inexpensive gray suit was gracefully fitted. She 
had done much of the work on it herself; she filled it 
smartly, and her carriage denoted a wistful inde¬ 
pendence. 


23 


JESSUP 

Now her mood had changed, and she was gazing 
with curious interest at the smoking tugs, blunt fer¬ 
ries, and soaking old barges. The smell of salt water 
was foreign to her nostrils. The musty, jailish odor 
of the boat was a little sickening. A big Cunarder 
was moving slowly down the river, its decks alive with 
travelers. It was the first ocean liner Jessup had 
ever seen, and the muscles of her white neck tightened 
round a sudden lump. 

The ferry began rolling in the wake of the liner, and 
presently lurched against the wooden side of the 
Twenty-third Street slip, making the wet, yielding 
beams and planks of the dock groan from the crash. 
Jessup, thrown against the rail, thought that the side 
of the boat had given way. She directed a quick look 
at a man who stood near her at the rail. But he must 
have been a seasoned commuter, for he did not appear 
in the least disturbed, and his equanimity reassured 
her. 

The bell in the pilot-house tapped its signals to the 
engine-room, and the blunt wooden nose of the ferry 
slid with a moaning sigh into the curved matrix of the 
dock. The gangplank rattled into place, and the pas¬ 
sengers were hurrying ashore. Among them only 
Jessup seemed to be in no special hurry. She grasped 
her wicker suitcase and moved forward with nervous 
diffidence. 

Hardly had she reached the street when a taxi drew 
up in front of her. The driver reached for her bag 
and deposited it in the front of the car. 


24 JESSUP 

“Where to?” he demanded, noticing her uncer- 
tainty. 

“Hotel Flanders,” replied Jessup. She had seen the 
hotel’s advertisements on billboards on the New Jer¬ 
sey meadows. She knew it was located somewhere in 
the theatrical district, and named it on the sour of the 
moment. 

The car shot forward through the traffic-filled con¬ 
course and on into Twenty-third Street. The skies 
were blue and almost smokeless. In an ancient row of 
rooming-houses with drab lawns and iron fences, 
Jessup saw a sign bearing the name “Cornish Arms” 
and wondered what it meant. The car was grazing 
the sides of dusty street cars and motor trucks, and 
soon passed beneath the dark steel scaffolding of the 
elevated. 

The roar and confusion were bewildering. Where 
were the glamour and gorgeousness with which her 
dreams had invested New York? It might have been 
better to have remained in Buffalo. But already Jessup 
felt separated from Buffalo by a great gulf of space 
and time. Already her life in Buffalo had receded into 
phantom years in which she had only been marking 
time against to-day’s entrance into New York. What 
imperious, involuntary impulse had dragged her here? 
What indefinable currents in her blood and tempera¬ 
ment had given her no rest until she had exchanged the 
known for the unknown? 

The region of theaters and hotels now loomed before 
Jessup, and the names of familiar plays and players 


JESSUP 25 

at the theater entrances. She caught sight of pic¬ 
tures of stars in the lobbies. These names and images 
seemed to guard the theaters with singular jealousy. 
Jessup questioned if she could ever dig or climb or 
scheme,her way past these intrenched personalities and 
annihilating names. What chance had she to clamber 
out of obscurity and drag herself into the stern regions 
of prominence and of light? 

At the hotel she registered as “Miss Jessup.” She 
hesitated for a moment as to where to register from, 
and then she wrote “New York.” 

“Room and bath?” asked the clerk. 

“Yes.” 

“Four and a half dollars a day. Boy!” 

Jessup concealed a gasp, but reflected that in a day 
or two, after she had a chance to get her bearings, she 
would find less expensive quarters, for at this rate her 
slender savings would not carry her far. 

Her room was high up. Its mahoganies and white 
counterpane, its fresh rug, tall mirror, and French 
prints framed in strips of gilded wood, gave her a 
sense of luxurious appointment. She wished she could 
stay here indefinitely, but that was out of the question. 
Through the open window came the deep-toned rum¬ 
ble of New York. She stood regarding the roofs and 
lofty signs and solemn spires, outlined against the bland 
blue April sky, and wondered where and what she 
would be a week, a month, a year from now. She was 
conscious of alternating currents of fear and confi¬ 
dence. Now that she was here, her coming seemed at 
once foolhardy and yet inevitable. A stream of cir- 


26 


JESSUP 

cumstance much stronger than her vacillating will 
seemed to have drawn her here. It seemed inex¬ 
plicably fitting that she should be here. It seemed 
irrational and grotesque for her to have come, and yet 
it seemed inevitable. 

An hour later, Jessup locked her door, descended to 
the lobby, and started out for a look at the city. 
Through the noon-day crowds that were now hurrying 
through the street, she drifted east, and presently 
found herself drawn into the vital currents of Fifth 
Avenue. She did not know the name of the avenue, 
but she felt an indescribable inner response. Its gray 
fagades, its flower-boxes, the dwarf cedars at impos¬ 
ing entrances, the bright green busses, the brisk flood 
of motors, smartly groomed pedestrians, and proud 
dogs gave Jessup a sudden feeling of thankfulness that 
such a street as this existed. 

The mesmerism of the gently sloping avenue made 
her feel like jumping up and down and barking like a 
dog. There was a subtle sorcery about it that gave 
her a pang of regret that she had not come here long 
ago. She held a grudge against the world that it had 
not informed her of what she was missing. It was 
igniting new ambitions in her and stirring up inchoate 
inklings of undreamed-of powers. 

Every threshold seemed an inlet to adventure and 
romance. Back of massive marble columns she was 
aware of the vibration of beguiling interiors, of violet 
twilights and apricot dusks. The awnings of blue 


JESSUP 27 

and buff, the lamplit corridors, the spacious brocaded 
windows addressed her in incantatory syllables. 

Hardly daring to look at the windows of the shops, 
Jessup pressed dreamily on, aware of a peculiar sense 
of expectation and enchantment. Little by little the 
spell of scarlet velvets, of gold and silver and carved 
woodwork, of voluptuous hangings and ravishing rugs, 
began to occupy her. Pearls and emeralds and lumps 
of jade beckoned to her from their casement lairs. 
Flasks of amber perfume made enchanting overtures 
to her imagination. Unimagined silks glimmered and 
glistened in bewitching folds, and almost caressed her 
skin with their soothing blandishments. She discov¬ 
ered satin footwear with smoldering buckles that made 
her own slender leather boots appear gruff and tawdry 
in comparison. There were paintings of honey-brown 
landscapes and of lovely women that assuaged her emo¬ 
tions like a flood of orchestral music. 

The whole world seemed to have emptied its pre¬ 
cious coffers into this lane of luminous windows. The 
caravans and ships of the mysterious East seemed to 
have poured their cargoes into this aisle of wonders. 
All of the regents and satraps and potentates of barter 
seemed to have assembled their massive tents along 
this avenue of granites and Italian marbles. 

Jessup wandered on and on. Her temperament 
tingled to express something for which the somber, 
waiting years had been keying her up. There was a 
strange singing in her tissues, an aching restlessness to 
take her place in this effulgent city, and to become part 
of its rich chant. She had come to the right place. 


28 


JESSUP 

There was no doubt of it any more. She seemed to 
have known and loved her new surroundings for ages. 
The morning’s apprehensions no longer darkened her 
reveries. Invisible hands seemed to be dipping up gob¬ 
lets of the avenue’s vital essence and pouring it into 
her veins. 

An amber nimbus filled the sky. Nearer the earth 
it thickened into globes of orange light, and into the 
gushing froth of electric signboards. At the window 
of her room stood Jessup, gazing moodily out over the 
city. She had eaten a lonely luncheon, and a still lone¬ 
lier dinner. Her first day in New York had tired her 
out. She wondered how many miles she had walked. 

The puddles of reflected light on the pavements, the 
coursing gleam of the signs, and the mists that hung 
suspended in unearthly billows of color, seemed to 
cloud her vision, like a luminous dust. Lights every¬ 
where, yet they seemed to her to cast no light. The 
shaded light in her room seemed to diffuse only a be¬ 
wildering twilight. She removed the shade, then 
clapped it back on, for the glare of electricity was even 
worse than the muddy twilight. She thought of the 
warm, clean light of an oil-lamp, of the soft clean light 
of candles. 

All day she had counted upon going to the theater 
to-night, on studying the acting, and imagining herself 
one of the players. But night had fallen and she was 
standing in utter listlessness at the window of her room. 
She realized that she had accomplished nothing all day. 


JESSUP 29 

She had drifted idly with the crowds and had basked 
aimlessly in the glamour of Fifth Avenue’s windows. 

“To-morrow I must get started,” she was thinking. 
“I can’t let another day go by. I mustn’t. It seems 
an age since I’ve been in New York, and not a thing 
accomplished, absolutely nothing accomplished.” 

Then she burst out: “Oh, I feel like a lot of light¬ 
ning ! If I only knew where to strike I” 

Reproachful thoughts wove and circled through her 
mind. She recalled her decision to leave the unbear¬ 
able roof of the Helmans one rainy night years ago, 
and how dawn had found her still seated on the edge 
of her bed, filled with plans and inaction. She knew 
that now she must press her plans into action. She 
had no time to lose. But her resolution quickly brought 
its train of doubts and apprehensions. All day she 
had felt a growing sensitiveness about her clothes. 
The smartly-groomed women in motors ancf on the 
street, the cuts and twists and vogues displayed in a 
hundred windows had made her painfully aware of 
her own shortcomings. She was too acutely observant 
and critical to find a particle of comfort in the rapid 
comparisons of what was being worn and of what she 
herself possessed. 

“I haven’t anything but rags,” she had said to her¬ 
self in disgust many times during the day. 

At first she had attributed the lingering inspection 
of a man’s eyes to these discordant notes in her dress. 
But presently she realized that it was not that. She 
had perceived this look before. It was the same in 
New York as it was in Buffalo and Rochester and 


30 JESSUP 

Albany. There was a time when she had been afraid 
of It; but she wasn’t any more. She had learned that 
men were not difficult to handle. 

She felt a sudden weakness and nausea, a faint, 
speculative shudder. She thought of the autumn night 
on which Helman had blurted out the facts about her 
mother. She wondered how much of the traits of 
her mother had been transmitted to her. How much 
of that sinistrous origin had tracked her and clung? 

A gloomy, crushing sense of bitterness weighed upon 
her. She kept pulling at her handkerchief until It tore. . 
The sound of the tearing linen gave her nerves a sense 
of almost savage comfort. And presently she was 
swept by a relieving surge of self-pity. Tears welled 
Into her eyes and she threw herself with a sob upon 
the bed 

In ten minutes Jessup’s grief had spent Itself. She 
threw the torn, wet fragments of her handkerchief to 
the floor, and exclaimed: 

“Oh, shut up I Take a bath and go to sleep.” 


CHAPTER III 


The matinee seemed endless to Jessup; the Sep¬ 
tember afternoon almost stifled her; and Broadway’s 
heat rolled in rabid billows into the dressing-room, 
where it remained because there was no electric fan 
to repulse it. She had made seven changes of costume, 
and although the conductor had mercifully cut encores 
to the minimum, the finale found her smiling through 
gritted teeth and dancing to an audience no longer 
visible. A reddish mist surrounded her, broken by 
galloping points and patches of jetty black. 

Willing herself not to faint, Jessu,p heard rather 
than saw the curtains closing. 

“Hope that sweating crowd’s got enough,” said 
one of the show-girls. “Gee,, how I hate matinees!” 

“It’s a nuisance to open in September,” lamented 
another, kicking off a pair of gilt slippers. 

“Just the same I’m glad I’m working,” panted 
Jessup to herself. She was removing the' grease¬ 
paint from her face and the beads from her eyelids 
with swabbing strokes of fingers coated with cold 
cream. 

“Oh, of course. But there’s no sense In such rotten 
weather,” said a voice beside her, whose face shared 
with Jessup a broken make-up mirror. “New York’s 
a frying pan in September. Never knew it to fail.” 

The breathless boudoir was filled with undressed 

31 


32 JESSUP 

occupants. In print, the finest adjectives were lav¬ 
ished on their looks. Behind footlights and make-up, 
they were indubitably attractive. But here the en¬ 
chantment bestowed by press agents and skillful stage¬ 
craft was wanting; the scene was now a chaos of limp, 
grumbling bodies, clouds of talcum powder, smears of 
deodorant, sticky hose and flimsy underwear. 

“There goes that damn garter! Anyone got a safety 
piti?” walled one of the beauties, near tears. But no 
one seemed to pay any attention to her appeal, and 
too weary to repeat It, she sat scratching her back 
with long strokes of her pointed fingernails. 

“This do you any good?” said Jessup, offering a pin. 

“Thanks awfully.” 

Through the thin partition that separated the room 
fiom the dressing quarters of the chorus men, filtered 
frank speech and weary oaths. An unschooled tenor 
burst Into an Italian aria, violating It vocally and 
substituting foolish, brainless syllables for Its words. 
A fretful voice growled at him to quit. 

Jessup’s dressing proceeded rapidly, and she was 
the first to Issue from the stage-door. 

“Cute little thing,” observed the scratcher languidly. 

“Too scrawny,” commented another. “Funny way 
she does her hair.” 

Plain-spoken and unsparing comments on Jessup 
ensued. 

“Meow!” came a yowl at length from the adjoin¬ 
ing room. 

A russet glow lay on Broadway’s sidewalks. Tired 
eddies from the rivers of pedestrians were running Into 


JESSUP 33 

drugstores and clotting in front of syrupy soda-foun¬ 
tains whose foaming taps did a lively business. A 
prematurely lighted electric signboard’s lemon-colored 
blaze was almost invisible against the glare of the 
afternoon sun. 

The titles of the various early-season productions 
were all familiar to Jessup. One by one she had kept 
track of their rehearsals and openings, had climbed 
hot stairs and waited in dingy anterooms of the man¬ 
agers to apply for a part, had seen week after week 
pass by and the theatrical season gain momentum, 
indifferent to her presence in New York. It was just 
four weeks ago to-day that Nordahl had singled her 
out from among a crowd of applicants and had told 
her to report for rehearsal at eight-thirty next morn¬ 
ing at Bryant Hall. 

As long as she lived she would never forget the 
weeks of daily rehearsals that followed. Every room 
in the big, gloomy, dusty building on Sixth Avenue 
rang during that feverish period with a continuous 
din of rehearsals. This humid hothouse inhaled its 
raw materials of men and women and scripts and 
scores, caused them to flower into the gorgeous pro¬ 
fessional petals and foliage of a new crop of musical 
shows, and exhaled them, richly nurtured and per¬ 
fumed, into their appointed theaters for dress-rehear¬ 
sal and opening nights. Like a weird, tropical hot¬ 
house, Bryant Hall had transformed its raw materials 
into luscious food for box-offices and into payrolls for 
players. 

Seeing Nordahl, the war-horse of directors, in 


34 JESSUP 

action proved an amazing experience for Jessup. She 
liked his terse, testy, businesslike manner. She mar¬ 
veled at the man’s monumental patience. His nerves 
seemed to be always near the breaking point, yet were 
always held in control. He spoke in a tense, quiet, 
sustained monotone. Every syllable issued with crisp, 
distinct emphasis. He was small in stature, and lean, 
and alert, and agile. But his agility seemed driven. 
Nordahl was the most tired-looking man Jessup could 
remember ever having seen. She wondered how he 
kept going. She marveled at the stream of unwaning 
vitality that kept passing from his small, tired frame 
to the pupils before him. His grayish eyes glowed 
and smoldered and chided his people for inattention to 
instructions. His small feet would suddenly flare into 
a new and complicated pattern of dance-steps, and then 
subside into weary immobility. 

“My God, my God!” he would say in his unfail¬ 
ingly tense and subdued monotone. “You don’t watch 
me. You don’t listen to me. If you don’t care, then 
give someone else a chance. A lot of people want to 
get in. I know. I know. They stop me on the street. 
They want to go to work. They want to get into this 
company. They know what I can do with this show. 
It’s going to run a year on Broadway. I know. I 
know. I’ve been in this business a long time. If you 
don’t want to work, give someone else a chance. All 
right. Let’s try it again.” 

There was a fascination about the man’s tired, seri¬ 
ous voice, his courteous and persuasive chiding, his 
sexless eyes. 


JESSUP 35 

The peculiar sexlessness of Nordahl’s eyes was a 
surprise to Jessup. She had been led to believe that 
all males connected with the management of a musical 
comedy comprised an amorous gentry ever alert for 
fresh adventures. It was a comfort to perceive that 
whatever others were still to be encountered in the 
dusky zone of the stage door, this director at least was 
animated by a zeal that was entirely professional. 

During those breathless hours of rehearsal, Jessup 
marveled at the spontaneous ingenuity of the direc¬ 
tor’s mind. While Bryant Hall shook and rang with 
the discordant din of a dozen pianos and the drum of 
a multitude of feet, the imperturbable Nordahl would 
invent incredible new steps, and trips, and curvets that 
at first seemed impossible to perform, but that evolved 
at length under his tenacious coaching into a finished 
and perfected number. 

“Don’t be so languid,” he would plead with re¬ 
pressed intensity, but in a monotone keyed hardly 
higher than a whisper. “There’s a lot of money 
invested in this piece. A lot of money. We’ve all 
got to work. We’ve got to work. It’s hot. I know. 
I know. But we open in another week. We’ve got a 
lot to do. Some of you girls don’t get enough sleep. 
You come down here and you can’t work. It won’t do. 
This dance isn’t easy. It’s something new. The house 
will go wild. [You’ll see. I can do it and I’m old. 
You’re young. Why can’t you? Come on. Let’s try 
it again.” 

Little by little the pattern of complicated steps 
would evolve into a silken and seductive smoothness. 


36 JESSUP 

On the hot September day of the first matinee, 
the evening performance was danced and sung on an 
even more sweltering stage. But directly the final 
curtain had fallen, Nordahl issued orders for still 
another rehearsal. The authors had written a new 
song to brace a dreary passage of dialogue in the first 
act, and the producer had ordered the song to be 
inserted at once. 

At the piano in the orchestra pit a group of men 
were conferring. The short, dark, authoritative- 
looking young man wearing a straw hat was Engberg, 
the composer. The sallow-faced blond was the con¬ 
ductor. And the grizzled one with hairy hands and 
ears, broad beaming face, and sensitive chin was 
Franz Sadner. Of the three, Sadner was the real per¬ 
sonage. In musical comedy circles he was known as 
an orchestrator, an arranger. Outside of these inner 
circles, no one ever heard of him, for his name never 
appeared on the programs. And yet on his broad 
musical shoulders rested the bulk of responsibility for 
the finished beauty of most of the new music of the 
theaters. 

In his long career, Sadner had literally orchestrated 
every number in hundreds of musical comedies. He 
was Broadway’s uncrowned king of counterpoint. His 
genius enabled him to take the often fragmentary tunes 
suggested by composers, and to fashion them into 
haunting things of imperious popular appeal. For 
twenty years he had slaved incessantly over Broad¬ 
way’s melodies, wringing them into orchestral charm, 
shading, illuminating, and distinguishing them with his 


JESSUP 37 

musical sorcery. Over the groping, fugitive ideas of 
others he was slaving himself to death. In his plain 
little office in the center of the distractions and rush 
of the Rialto, he would shut his ears to the roar of the 
city, and bend his gifted inner ear over the music of 
new shows. At times he would work for forty-eight 
hours in a stretch without sleep in order to have a 
score ready for an opening. The producers knew that 
Sadner could be relied upon to bequeath upon it the 
desired touches of orchestral loveliness. 

Jessup was wandering about among the half-dressed 
members of the chorus, waiting for the midnight 
rehearsal to begin. Now and then she heard Franz 
Sadner humming in a husky voice at the piano. She 
had heard him called the orchestrator, but she had no 
notion of the genius behind the friendly, rugged face 
that beamed even when it was near exhaustion. Jessup 
was frightfully tired too, but it refreshed and strength¬ 
ened her to see Sadner in the group at the piano. 

Nordahl darted in, and took stock of his chorus; 
he nervously rubbed his forehead; his lambent feet 
began thoughtfully outlining the steps of a new dance- 
pattern on the floor. 

“All right,” he began rapidly. “Let’s try something 
like this. I don’t know why they spring it on us now. 
My God, they shouldn’t do it. They should have 
thought of it before. That’s the trouble with an 
author. But there’s nothing else for us to do. We’ve 
got to add a new number.” 

Later, while Nordahl’s eyes ran wearily along the 


38 


JESSUP 

row of dancing feet, a look of pain crossed his face, 
and his palms came together with a thump. 

“No, that’s not it at all,” he interrupted. “You 
don’t follow me. You don’t pay attention. Miss Jes¬ 
sup,” he added abruptly. 

Jessup thought she was about to be reprimanded. 

“Come here. Miss Jessup,” said Nordahl. 

She obeyed. 

“You’re the only one who watched me,” he con¬ 
tinued. “But you added some steps of your own. 
They’re all right. I like them. I think they’ll go. 
Let me see you do it again.” 

Jessup repeated the steps. 

“Again, please. I want everybody to watch you.” 

Once more Jessup executed the steps. 

“All right. Now let me see the rest of you do It,” 
said the director. 

During the remainder of the rehearsal, Jessup 
worked without any of the weariness with which she 
had started. Nordahl’s recognition had revived her 
confidence. She felt that she was making progress. 
Her sense of doubt and mediocrity receded before a 
feeling of energetic reassurance. She felt less uncer¬ 
tainty as to her chances to hang on. 

As usual, Jessup left the theater alone. She had 
established no particular friendships with any of the 
women of the company; and while a few of the chorus 
men had shown signs of Interest, she had maintained 
an air of reserve. To-night, by the time the rehearsal 
was over, the crowds in the streets had thinned out, 


JESSUP 39 

while the torrents of light that billowed through 
Broadway had begun to diminish in volume. The 
electric signboards of most of the theaters had been 
quenched for the night, and the titles were only dimly 
visible, outlined by unlighted globes. 

For the first time since Jessup’s inconspicuous debut 
in theatrical life, she felt like an accepted part of its 
feverish velocity. The sense of precarious uncer¬ 
tainty with which she had been clinging to its fringes 
had left her when Nordahl had singled her out. 

She heard brisk, familiar footsteps behind her. 

“Good night. Miss Jessup,” said Nordahl, and 
quickly disappeared around a corner. 

Night-faring taxis were humming through the 
streets, and several times Jessup caught sight of occu¬ 
pants embracing. Once an enormous touring car 
droned by, filled with laughing blacks. She noticed 
that they were sportily dressed, and jeweled; the 
women’s dark cheeks glowed with rouge. The sen¬ 
suous load rolled mysteriously toward Eighth Avenue. 

In sharp contrast, romantic-looking groups were 
entering the foyer of the Little Club. Jessup felt her 
curiosity welling up with an involuntary rush. The 
clustered lights of a lobby, or a mysterious entrance, 
or the sudden 'appearance of an awing town-car would 
send a challenge through her. Waves of faint, seduc¬ 
tive perfumes would come to her, and she would feel 
herself poised on the verge of mythical adventures. 

Jessup was hungry after to-night’s rehearsal. She 
longed for something better than the metal chairs, 
plain tables, and thick cups of the lunchroom where she 


40 


JESSUP 

often stopped for a bite to eat at night. She was 
tempted to drop in at Shanley’s, or at Claridge’s. She 
craved softly cushioned benches, smooth and heavy 
linens, thick rugs, dainty china, interesting people. 
She wondered where men like Nordahl, and the com¬ 
poser, and the orchestrator ate their suppers. She had 
a curiosity to sit in a corner and watch them. 

She thought of the suppers and parties that must 
be in progress in New York to-night. Remembered 
fragments of conversation overheard in the dressing- 
room at the theater drifted back to her. It seemed 
that every girl was hurrying to keep an appointment, 
and that she alone remained isolated, unsought, and 
uninvited. 

From force of habit, Jessup entered the eating- 
house where the cups were thick and the coffee thin. 
She looked languidly at the soiled menu, and ordered. 
Her sandwich and coffee were brought, and she began 
eating indifferently. She felt lonelier and more iso¬ 
lated than at any time since she had come to New York. 
The people in the restaurant all seemed inferior and 
inconsequential. She studied her face in the cloudy 
mirror beside the table, and wondered if she looked 
like these people. 

She had hardly begun her supper when she saw 
Sadner, the orchestrator, coming in. She was sur¬ 
prised. He noticed her looking at him, and must have 
remembered her vaguely, for he bowed with diffident 
indecision, took a table on the other side of the room, 
and soon was consuming a plate of Irish stew and large 
quantities of ketchup. Presently he ordered a second 


JESSUP 

cup of coffee, and, lost to his surroundings, Kegari 
writing rapidly on the back of his menu. 

Jessup watched with interest. She supposed that 
he was composing. It was romantic and surprising to 
her to discover the musician at work in the midst of 
a meal. She had hazy, ambiguous notions of melodies 
thronging his mind and finding their way to the scrap 
of greasy paper. His face grew meditative. She kept 
watching him with furtive and persistent interest, 
imagining staffs and clefs and jumpy notes appearing 
enigmatically on the food-stained bill of fare. 

Following Sadner’s example, Jessup was soon rum¬ 
maging through her bag for a pencil. She reflected 
that it must be fascinating to be able to write the tunes 
that ran through one’s head. She wondered if she 
had any talent for that sort of thing. She drew the 
lines of a staff and began jotting down notes, but smiled 
at her own absurdity, and idly began sketching the cos¬ 
tume she wore in the finale. Then the whim seized 
her to improve upon it, and she added sundry ribbons, 
and sashes, and gay flounces. 

Sadner rose, paid his reckoning at the desk, and dis¬ 
appeared. Jessup soon followed. On her way to the 
cashier’s desk, she passed close to the table where 
he had sat, and glanced at the sheet of paper on which 
he had been writing. But instead of the expected 
notes, she discovered a column of figures. But she did 
not know that the perplexed, scribbled sums disclosed 
the financial agonies of this genius who was measur¬ 
ably responsible for many of the biggest successes on 
Broadway. The perplexed sums he had jotted down 


42 


JESSUP 

while he worriedly ate his Irish stew, represented a 
hopeless effort to pay an accumulation of bills for rent, 
clothes, laundry, taxis, electric light, and books. She 
did not know that the producers paid him only a pit¬ 
tance for his labors, for Broadway was to Jessup still 
the street of gracious rewards. 


CHAPTER IV 


Night after night, Broadway continued to take 
Jessup into its feverish arms, to crush a little more 
of the youth out of her, and to send her back with a 
limp body and a bewildered mind to her rooming-house 
in West Fifty-fifth Street. There were times, when 
she was approaching the glare of the innumerable 
lights from the dimness of the neighborhood in which 
she lived, that Broadway seemed to her to have all the 
monumental garishness of an entrance to Hell. 

Often Jessup could hardly drive herself on. The 
convulsions of the immense unsubstantial crags and 
summits of light, plunging and soaring, impressed her 
as the settings in a drama incomparably more impor¬ 
tant than anything on Broadway’s multitude of stages. 
It was an impression of something ominous and over¬ 
powering. This overwhelming trench of theaters 
thickened the air with mists of murky gold that blinded 
and stupefied her. She felt like a marionette, and the 
crowds about her seemed to be pulled and moved by 
imperceptible strings. 

Once, after another long night rehearsal, when on 
her way to her room through the darker and more 
tranquil Broadway of 2 a. m., the faint beginnings 
of an understanding of its confusions dawned upon 
her. Traces of an unaccustomed hush had descended; 
some of the corners were almost deserted; and in the 


43 


44 JESSUP 

comparative quiet of the mild October night, she began 
to perceive something that she had not discerned 
before. 

It no longer seemed to her that the eruptions of 
this immense crater were actuated by the desire to 
amuse, but that Broadway was energized and kept 
going by an imperious craving to express. The people 
who swarmed its stages, and the unseen armies that 
worked behind the scenes and in the music pits, and in 
studies and offices, together with the millions of spec¬ 
tators who passed through the front doors of the thea¬ 
ters, were impelled by this urge. 

That urge, Jessup realized, was what had driven her 
here. But dancing and singing in the chorus were not 
what she had come for. She doubted whether declaim¬ 
ing lines was what she wanted. She did not know what 
she wanted. Occasionally she had fancied that it was 
marriage, children and a quiet home; but instantly 
that alternative had seemed intolerable. Again, she 
would fancy that she should let down the bars of her 
reserve and deliver herself into the pagan arms of 
living and enjoying. Her body often ached for re¬ 
lease from the restraints that she imposed upon her¬ 
self; and she had also observed that such scruples 
stood in the path of theatrical progress. But above 
all, she recognized that her restraint was in conflict 
with inherited impulses that rose at times into an 
almost ungovernable demand. 

Forms and faces beheld for a moment in passing 
crowds would often cling with peculiar vividness, and 


JESSUP 45 

In time her loneliness In New York became occupied 
with remembered faces, and these evolved into curious, 
Imaginary companionships. Ungovernable fantasies, 
centering round remembered features, would come to 
her in moody moments. Now and again she would 
take a pencil and attempt to draw a face that had 
impinged for a stirring moment upon her sight, and 
in time she found herself able to sketch certain like¬ 
nesses with gratifying results. 

The memory of expressive dresses seen on the street 
or In the lobbies of hotels would hover for days In her 
mind, and again she would try to record them. 
Sketching became an absorbing pastime; and one Sun¬ 
day, on a subway trip to Bronx Park, Jessup’s news¬ 
paper became an unseen sketch-book, as she drew casual 
character studies of a dozen or more of the passengers. 

One evening at the theater, dressed well In advance 
of the call for the opening chorus, she sketched the 
profile of one of the show-girls makIng-up before the 
mirror. Jessup was working on a newspaper with an 
eyebrow pencil, and was so wrapped up In the effort 
that she was unaware of one of the girls watching her 
attentively from behind. 

“Where did you learn to draw?” drawled the ob¬ 
server. 

Jessup added some finishing touches. “Does It look 
anything like her?” 

“Natural as life. Honest to God It does. Look 
here, Vic. Here’s a picture of you.” 

“Who? Me?” asked Jessup’s subject, a hoyden of 


46 JESSUP 

twenty, with bobbed hair of pecan-brown, a retrousse 
nose, short upper lip, and baby eyes. 

“Sure. You didn’t know you were sitting for a 
portrait, did you?” 

“Let’s see it, Jessup.” 

Jessup handed Vic the newspaper. 

“Well, what do you know?” drawled Vic, her face 
beaming with delight. “You’ve got me dead to rights. 
You certainly have. I didn’t know you were an artist. 
Where do you get that stuff? Does my nose turn up 
as much as that? Listen, can’t you straighten it a 
little?” 

“Don’t you touch that nose!” exclaimed another. 
“It’s just right. It’s worth a million.” 

Vic insisted upon having the picture. She wanted 
to have some fun with it, she explained. 

“Draw one of me, Jessup 1” cried half a dozen voices 
at once. 

Popularity descended upon Jessup, and for the next 
few days she was kept busy before and after perform¬ 
ances and between acts, making sketches of her com¬ 
panions. She patiently yielded to the storm of re¬ 
quests; and, while some of the results were crudely 
amateurish, others displayed a shrewdness of observa¬ 
tion and a knack for characterization that delighted 
her sitters. 

Later on in the season, the press-agent discovered 
what Jessup was doing, and conceived an idea for a 
novel stroke of publicity. He collected her sketches 
of the girls of the ensemble, all drawn on newspaper 
pages with an eyebrow pencil; and a few weeks later. 


JESSUP 47 

much to Jessup’s astonishment, her efforts appeared 
as a half-page feature in a Sunday pictorial supplement. 

This publicity brought a flood of patrons to the box- 
office, and a flock of unexpected and amusing letters to 
Jessup. Men invited her to dine with them. One 
novelty-hound of a hostess invited her to her home to 
sketch dinner guests. But Jessup, alarmed at the 
curious twist of popularity, declined. Her work 
seemed to her hopelessly incompetent. The press- 
agent, hearing of her refusal, was furious, but Jessup 
stood her ground stubbornly. 

“Say, what’s the matter with you?” he demanded. 
“Here’s a chance to grab off some real advertising. 
And you won’t lift a finger.” 

“I could never go through with it,” answered 
Jessup. 

“Ah, certainly you could. These gold coast babies 
don’t know good work from bad. It’s a chance of your 
lifetime. And it means one hell of a lot to this show.” 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.” 

The young man glared at her exasperatedly. 

“If you can make some marks on a piece of paper 
here, you can do it there!” he stormed. 

“I refuse to make a fool of myself,” contended 
Jessup. 

“Anyone else would jump at the chance.” 

“But I tell you I can’t draw. Any idiot could do 
as well. You had your nerve to put anything in the 
paper.” 

“Oh, my God, what’s the use?” growled the infuri- 


48 JESSUP. 

ated press-agent. “You ought to be fired out of this 
company.” 

“Perhaps I should.” 

“Ah, you’re crazy, that’s what you are I” 

From this time on, despite the wheedling of her 
companions, Jessup steadily refused to make any more 
sketches. Only In the privacy of her lodgings did she 
occasionally continue her drawing. 

The theatrical season dwindled with the approach 
of another summer, and early In May the closing 
notice was posted. Having providently laid away 
enough savings to tide herself through an Inactive 
summer, Jessup waited for the start of another season. 
She spent a fortnight in a boarding-house In the Cats¬ 
kills, but was glad to get away from the gabble of Its 
patrons, though only to return to the hot, dragging 
days and steamy nights of New York In midsummer. 

Now and then she encountered some of the girls 
of the company. From them she heard the gossip 
about Its members. The snub-nosed Vic had patched 
up her row with a manufacturer of women’s wear, and 
had sailed with him for a month In France. Another 
was touring New England with a gay party of real 
estate men and show-girls. Others had fared less 
excitingly; their lack of savings had forced them for 
the summer Into other callings. One was employed 
by a dentist. One was a manicure at a hotel. Several 
others were Instructresses of dancing at cabarets, 
where they were nightly permitting yokels to ruin the 
dainty shoes provided by the management. 


JESSUP 49 

Toward the end of July, Jessup received a postcard 
from Nordahl, asking her to report the next day for 
rehearsals. Again the rehearsals were at Bryant Hall, 
where early-season companies were being coached by 
anxious, hard-driving directors. Nordahl seemed 
identically the same; he talked in the same precise, 
intense monotone; and the old watchfulness smoldered 
in his eyes. The same devitalizing air of a hothouse 
permeated the dusty building. It occurred to Jessup 
that she had let herself in for year after year of this 
deadly routine. Her last season’s work had carried 
her no closer to anything better in the theater, and 
she seemed doomed to the silly treadmill of the chorus. 

At the dress-rehearsal, she took one look at the 
costumes for the first act, and was disappointed. 

feel like a cow in this dress,” one girl was 
grumbling. 

Jessup inspected her critically. 

“They ought to put you in something like this,” 
she said, taking a pencil, and sketching something of 
her notion as to how the other should be gowned. 
“Something lithe, like this. Much longer lines. May¬ 
be more of a flare here. Something on this order in 
back. It would suit you so much better.” 

“That’s more like it,” agreed the other quickly. 
“This thing I’ve got on is a mess. I hate it. But in 
this game they can’t pay any attention to personality. 
We’re just hired as clothes-hangers.” 

“Here’s what she should be wearing,” continued 
Jessup, turning to another, and drawing as she talked. 
“Something very simple. Put her in something de- 


50 


JESSUP 

mure, and the effect would be startling. Like this— 
and this. Why, she’s got a regular Madonna face. 
She shouldn’t bob her hair; it spoils the whole effect. 
She needs something modest and concealing.” 

Several of Jessup’s impulsive designs reached Nor- 
dahl. Some of her criticisms were repeated to him. 

“Our designers have costumed our shows for years,” 
he answered. “They ought to know what they’re 
doing. They’re good. Everybody wants them. They 
know what the public likes. But let me look at those 
sketches. Who made them?” 

“Jessup,” was the answer. 

“Miss Jessup? Is that so? She’s got some ideas. 
But they’re crude. They’re crudely expressed.” 

Nordahl stuck the sketches in his pocket, and pro¬ 
ceeded with his rehearsal. When it was over he beck¬ 
oned to Jessup. 

“Miss Jessup,” he began, “you’ve sketched some 
costumes. That’s all right. We don’t object to crit¬ 
icism. We’ve got to make it the best show we know 
how. Some of these people never have an idea in 
their heads. They’re like a lot of dolls. They don’t 
think. Your sketches are crude. But you’ve got an 
idea. I’ll take it up with our designers. If they can 
develop it, we’ll pay for it. We’ll pay you for your 
ideas. That’s what we want.” 

Jessup thanked him. 

Nordahl stood rubbing his forehead. “You’re tal¬ 
ented,” he added. “I can see that. You ought to 
study. You ought to take a course at an art school.” 

It was the second time that Broadway’s austere 


JESSUP 51 

director had singled Jessup out for commendation. It 
was nearly a year since he had complimented her for 
her dance steps, and she had never forgotten the thrill 
of satisfaction. It had given her a sense of identity 
and of security in the midst of the bewildering turmoil 
of Broadway nights. 




CHAPTER V 





An engrossing world of color and line and surfaces 
opened up to Jessup when she matriculated the fol¬ 
lowing month at the art school. Again and again dur¬ 
ing the first few weeks she sat at her easel with a sense 
of familiarity that made it difficult to realize that her 
life had not been consciously pointed in this direction 
for a long time. And yet, it had not entered her mind 
until Nordahl had made the suggestion. 

Her double activities were taxing but engaging, for 
she was now spending three to four hours a day at 
school, and was carrying on her work at the theater 
as well. When matinees compelled her to cut classes, 
she did so with a feeling of loss and regret. In March, 
when the company closed its New York run and opened 
in Boston, Jessup withdrew from it rather than inter¬ 
rupt her studies. 

In the tranquil atmosphere of the classrooms and 
studios, she could feel herself expanding. For the first 
time since coming to New York it seemed to her that 
she had found something that she had been groping 
for. The life classes filled her with an eagerness. The 
faint, grinding swish of her charcoal on drawing paper 
sent a wave of nervous satisfaction through her finger¬ 
tips. She had a curious, comforting feeling of stand¬ 
ing at last on appointed ground. 

52 


JESSUP 53 

Once, pausing at her side, an instructor asked: 
“Where did you study art before you came here?” 

“Nowhere,” she replied. 

“That’s good work you’re doing,” he continued. 
“But you’ll have to look out for your proportions.” 
He closed one eye and made some rapid measurements 
with his pencil. “The model’s not nearly so tall as 
you’re making her.” 

“But wouldn’t it be wonderful if she were?” asked 
Jessup. 

“I shouldn’t try for any of those grotesque effects. 
You know, this is a life class, not a class in covers for 
Vanity Fair,” he warned. 

Nurtured and disciplined by her studies, Jessup’s 
bent for sketching the faces of strangers continued to 
engage her, and in time it took a course that kindled 
her curiosity and filled her with the smoke of disturb¬ 
ing speculations. Scanning the faces of older men, 
eliminating some, and fixing upon others for studious 
portrayal, she was searching their lineaments for 
subtle stamps of temperament and identity. This hunt 
became a secret and insatiable passion with her. Her 
restless eyes would linger for wondering moments on 
distinguished features at the windows of clubs. In boxes 
at the theater. In the tonneaux of motors. In shops and 
on the sidewalks. She was always in search of faces 
of older men. 

Jessup, who was now twenty-two, had concluded 
that her father, If he was living, must be somewhere 
between forty and sixty, probably between forty and 


54 JESSUP 

fifty. There was something strained and sinister to 
her about the word “father.” Its disquieting cadence 
beat through her mind with an ominous rhythm, leav¬ 
ing a trail of sullenness and hostility, and often a track 
of consuming curiosity. 

The knowledge of her origin had established a sub¬ 
conscious bed of soil, a continuous breeding place for 
distressing images. In moments of depression, Jessup 
would be suddenly confronted by disturbing concep¬ 
tions of what manner of man her father might have 
been. But in more rational and analytic moods, she 
would endeavor to construct an idea of her father out 
of the confusing materials of her own personality, 
dismissing the traits that she knew belonged to the 
Helmans, and assorting and coordinating the remain¬ 
ing phases and impulses of her being. 

She fancied that her sense of beauty and discrimina¬ 
tion, her repugnance for the tawdry, and her impa¬ 
tience with the obvious, must be a heritage from her 
father. The persistent feeling of familiarity with 
which she had wandered about these magnetic streets 
from the beginning, and the diligence with which she 
had attacked her work in the theater and now at art 
school—these elements of herself seemed hardly to 
have emanated from the plodding, provincial Helmans. 

And yet what did she really know about her mother, 
and the wild venturing that had uprooted her from 
her own soil, and blown her away, a helpless shred of 
rebellion and of passion, to a garish life and youthful 
death? What traits of her own, after all, could she 
attribute to her mother, and which to her father? And 


JESSUP 55 

so, when almost convinced that she had at last suc¬ 
ceeded in discovering and isolating some definite 
paternal characteristics, she would promptly be thrown 
back into uncertainty and confusion. 

One bright October afternoon, Jessup left the art 
school and started toward Carnegie Hall to buy a 
ticket for a Sunday afternoon concert. For once she 
was not alone. 

Ivan Banning was her companion. He was an 
architect whom she had met several times through 
Doris Banning, his sister, a student at the same school. 
He had an air of the aloofness which is perhaps more 
characteristic of young Englishmen than of Americans. 
It may have been native to him; or it may have been 
the effect of three or four years’ residence abroad. 

Banning was rather taller than most of the men 
Jessup knew. His gray eyes were thoughtful and ob¬ 
servant; and good-humored outlines marked off the 
mouth and chin. His shoulders were slightly stooped, 
but the effect, instead of suggesting indolence, was 
subtly ingratiating. Jessup fancied that he was about 
thirty. She perceived a leisurely quality in him that 
differed essentially from the nervous rush that charac¬ 
terized Broadway. But Banning’s gait and speech 
were leisurely without appearing lazy. There were no 
evidences of drive or pressure. He seemed to have 
all the time in the world; he seemed a stranger to 
worry and to strain; and it was restful to Jessup to be 
with him. Banning impressed her as a representative 


56 , JESSHP ■ 

of a world that was sure of itself, sure of its station, 
sure of its past and future. 

“Where would you like to sit?” he asked as the)) 
entered the lobby. 

“Near the center, well back, on the main floor,” 
said Jessup, attempting to give him the money. 

“Please,” objected Banning. “One ticket or two?” 

“One.” 

Banning moved slowly forward with the line before 
the box-office, and soon rejoined Jessup. 

“I think you will like this location,” he said. 

“But you bought two tickets,” replied Jessup. 

“Yes. Pm going to take the liberty of taking you 
to this concert, if I may.” 

“That will be charming.” 

Banning pocketed the tickets, and said: “Pd like 
nothing better. Pll call for you at three next Sunday. 
Where shall I find you?” 

Jessup gave him her address. 

Leaving Carnegie Hall together, they joined the 
brisk currents of pedestrians that the autumnal migra¬ 
tion was sending back into town after a summer at 
sea, on beaches, and on mountain-flanks. The dazzle 
of summer had mellowed into a golden atmospheric 
quality that seemed to cover the sidewalks and build? 
ings with a powdery haze. 

The companion at her side gave Jessup an unaccus¬ 
tomed sense of being looked after. It seemed to her 
now for the first time that it mattered a little to New 
York that she was here. The man beside her seemed 
to symbolize a phase of the city which had hitherto 


JESSUP 57 

eluded her. His ease of manner, self-possession and 
quiet civility were markedly unlike the straining ten¬ 
sion of Broadway. Here was a courtesy and charm 
that seemed born of generations of gentle families. 
It suggested substantial residences, and spacious rooms 
with the portraits of ancestors on their walls. 

Jessup felt a peculiar timidity and embarrassment; 
she felt that she was touching elbows with a life and 
traditions remote from her own. She was attended by 
a sense of intrusion that troubled her one moment and 
gratified her the next. In this mood Broadway seemed 
intolerable, as if an enormous spoon had skimmed up 
the scum of the world and thrown it on the sidewalks 
in front of the theaters. 

Banning, as if aware of the direction of her thoughts, 
was remarking: “Your play seems to be having a 
famous run. It keeps packing the house. You’re am¬ 
bitious, doing both these things at the same time. 
Doesn’t it exhaust you?” 

Jessup laughed. “I wish I could live a dozen dif¬ 
ferent lives.” 

“What would they be ?” 

“I don’t know. A month or two ago it hadn’t oc¬ 
curred to me to study drawing. Now I hate to have 
to cut a class.” 

“Don’t you find it a grind?” asked Banning. 

“Not at all. It’s fun.” 

“You’re fortunate.” 

“Perhaps it’s just my curiosity,” answered Jessup. 
“I seem to be insatiably curious. People brush past 
me on the street, and I’m on edge with curiosity to 


58 JESSUP 

know all about them.” Jessup stopped abruptly. 
“That sounds absurd, doesn’t it?” she added. 

“On the contrary,” returned Banning. “It sounds 
delightfully rational. Whom are you curious about?” 

“Oh, everybody. Never a day passes but I wonder 
what it must be like to be a surgeon, a lawyer, the cap¬ 
tain of a ship, the owner of a great big store. I’d 
like to dwindle into a speck, and crawl inside of them, 
and find out about their lives. There’s something so 
mysterious about important men.” 

“But haven’t women been brandished aloft as the 
world’s eternal and unanswerable question-mark? 
What mystifies you so much about men?” 

Jessup was silent for a moment. Then she said 
lightly: “Their egotism.” 

“You score,” laughed Banning. 

“That cold and detached egotism,” continued Jessup. 
“A man can design a building, write a book, try a law¬ 
suit, build a bridge, breed a child, and then forget it 
completely and turn to something else. He seems to 
shed his performances as completely as a snake sheds 
its skin.” 

Ivan Banning looked at Jessup as if to say: “By 
Jove, but we’re very serious for a chorus lady.” But 
he replied: “Speaking for architects, I should say 
that after one has designed a replica of an older mil¬ 
lionaire’s home for a new millionaire, or an atrocity 
of a skyscraper, one is justified in trying to forget the 
performance.” 

“Atrocity?” demanded Jessup. “They satisfy 
so long as they’re high.” 


me 



JESSUP 


59. 


Banning smiled. 

“Architecture has dwindled from an art into an en¬ 
terprise,” he answered. “Why, there’s nothing more 
anonymous on earth to-day. One new building after 
another goes up, but no one seems to know the name 
of the architect, or even care. Every other art has 
its critics. A new picture, a new book, a new play 
can cause a furore. Other artists rush to the attack 
and to the defense. The idea, the treatment, the tech¬ 
nique, are discussed at the dinner table and on the lec¬ 
ture platform. But a new building is designed, turned 
over to the contractor, built, paid for, and people move 
in, and that’s all. In the theater, you have your audi¬ 
ence. You can always tell whether they like your work 
or don’t. But this business of mine has become as 
impersonal as hod-carrying. You can name hundreds 
of poets and novelists whose books are in the public 
library, and dozens of painters whose work is in the 
Metropolitan Museum. But I doubt if you can name 
the architect of a single New York building.” 

“Stanford White,” retorted Jessup. 

“You prove my point,” answered Banning. “His 
name is known, not because he was an architect, but 
because he was murdered. What I mean to say is that 
we’d have more beautiful and more distinctive build¬ 
ings if architects were held accountable by a critical 
public opinion for their ideas and their development.” 

“I think you’re right,” said Jessup thoughtfully. “I 
realize what an impossible ignoramus I am.” 

“Not at all,” protested Banning. “I didn’t mean 
anything like that.” 


6o 


JESSUP 

“I want to see some of your buildings,” said Jessup. 

“Mine? There aren’t any. Oh, I’ve contributed 
to a good many jobs, of course. But these things are 
all collaborations. A dozen different men may have 
had a hand in the finished designs. But here, this is 
no time for a lot of shop-talk.” 

But Jessup had been listening hungrily. Banning’s 
impulsive outburst pleased her singularly. She felt 
complimented. What he had said seemed somehow to 
have raised the level and deepened the course of their 
previous casual acquaintance. She felt less of the old 
necessity of being on guard. She was glad that he had 
kept the conversation away from the fringes of sex. 

He took her to the concert the following Sunday; 
and then, when week after week passed without Jessup 
seeing or hearing from him, she concluded that she 
must have bored him insufferably. She imagined that 
he considered her ignorant, that he must have found 
her uninteresting compared with other women. She 
became disgusted with herself, and began to hate her 
work on Broadway with a resentment that drove her 
into furious concentration on her tasks at art school. 
She suspected that it was foolish to imagine a man of 
Banning’s type to become much interested in her, and 
persuaded herself that it was ridiculous to give him 
any further thought. 

About a month later, however, she received a note, 
asking if she would join him for supper some evening 
after the theater, and, if agreeable to her, to name the 
evening. Jessup’s first impulse was to ignore the re¬ 
quest entirely and thus to guard against possible em- 


JESSUP 6i 

barrassm'ent. Her second Impulse was to reply wItK 
independence that she was too busy. Her next was 
to accept; she told him to come the following Tuesday. 
But no sooner had she posted her reply, than she was 
assailed by doubts as to the sense of seeing Banning 
again; and when she finally met him at the stage door, 
she did not know whether she was glad or disappointed 
that he had come. 

“I saw the show,” said Banning as they entered a 
taxi. “I liked It. You were delightful.” 

He had reserved a table at the Palais Royal, where 
the floor was crowded with dancers when they arrived. 
,The big room was tented with silk, and lighted by enor¬ 
mous lamps. Perfumes, powder, and Turkish tobac¬ 
cos filled the air with languid scents, through which 
the French horns and saxophones and strings pulsated 
with barbaric rhythm. The contents of pocket flasks 
were being freely transferred Into highball glasses and 
cocktail goblets without any signs of secrecy, and loud 
peals of alcoholic laughter rang from numerous tables. 

“Do you care for something to drink?” asked Ban¬ 
ning. “Or are you In a mood to exercise your veto 
power?” 

Jessup regarded the thin, silver flask, and replied; 
“I think I’ll be tempted.” 

“It’s pre-war Scotch,” he explained. To the waiter 
he said: “Some ginger ale.” Turning again to Jessup, 
he added: “I believe this place Is amply protected 
against prohibition raids.” 

“Still, a raid would be exciting,” said Jessup. 

“Shall we finish this dance?” 


62 


JESSUP 


Jessup rose. 

“This can hardly be called dancing,” said Banning 
as they pushed their way into the chaos of warm, 
scented bodies. 

Jessup was glad to have found a dancing partner, 
and was comparing him with the other men all about 
them. She discovered women trailing glances after 
him, and occasionally encountered men’s eyes lingering 
on her. It seemed ages since she had danced anywhere 
except on the stage. 

The jazz ended abruptly; they returned to their 
table; and the stinging coolness of her highball added 
a new element to Jessup’s unusual night. Looking at 
Ivan Banning, she wondered about his people, the home 
that had bred him, the lofty rooms with their ancestral 
portraits. 

A grotesque, impressionistic picture of the dancers 
came to Jessup through half-shut eyes. It was a thick 
lather of motion, composed of a great variety of tempos 
and embraces. Receptive young things were held 
tightly grasped by older men as if this passionate con¬ 
tact with youth might actually help lengthen their own 
days. Slim white arms encircled all manner of male 
necks. Cheeks and ears were pressed like stethoscopes 
against men’s lungs. Fingers were entwined in innu¬ 
merable twists. There were shoulders of amazing 
whiteness, and shoulders of incredible dinginess; 
sprightly legs and languid ones; girls with blossoming 
cheeks and youths with a night-faring pallor. There 
were bodies finely keyed to the rhythm of the orches¬ 
tra,, and bodies as rhythmless as clay. The life-force 


JESSUP 63 

was manifesting itself in hundreds of differing steps 
and gaits and postures. Some of the dancers were as 
listless as shambling pedestrians, and some were pasted 
together with a procreant tension. 

“Decadent stuff, isn’t it?” remarked Banning. 

Jessup, although she was not sure of the meaning 
of “decadent,” agreed with him. 

Now they were returning to their table, and Banning 
was explaining that he rarely danced, and Jessup was 
gratified to hear him say so. 

“People don’t dance any more,” he complained when 
they were seated. “They just keep moving.” 

“Still, we couldn’t very well go back to the minuet,” 
said Jessup. “There are too many people, and not 
enough floor-space.” 

“It requires room to be graceful,” said Banning. 
“The more civilization, the less room.” 

She looked from him to the tented room and sur¬ 
veyed the people at its many tables. 

“Is it only rhy imagination,” she asked, “or do most 
of the people in here look distorted and grotesque? It 
isn’t only the way they dance; it’s the way they look 
when they’re sitting at a table. At that table over 
there, for instance. Don’t they look like the inmates 
of an insane asylum?” 

“You’ve described them,” said Banning. “There is 
something uncanny about some of these faces. Poe 
could have taken that tableful of people and written 
a story about them.” 

“There’s something creepy about it,” continued 
Jessup. “Is it New York that does it?” 


64 JESSUP 

“It’s the strain, the competition, the frightful dis¬ 
appointments. Do you know. I’m uncomfortable 
every time I do any work on the cornice of a high 
building. I’m uncomfortable, thinking of the de¬ 
spondent people who are destined sooner or later to 
jump off the roof or out of a window.” 

“Destined?” repeated Jessup. 

“Yes, it seems so to me. Don’t we do what we are 
compelled to do by the force of circumstances beyond 
our control?” 

“I believe that,” said Jessup thoughtfully. “Still, 
I should hate to think that you were driven over here 
to-night by some circumstantial monster that you 
couldn’t resist.” 

Banning was quick to protest. “I’m here because 
I want to be,” he said. “Still, I couldn’t have stayed 
away even if I had tried.” 

“But you did stay away until I had all but forgotten 
you,” interposed Jessup. 

“My memory was not so short as that,” answered 
Banning seriously. “I’ve been thinking about you 
more than I wanted to. Come on, let’s dance.” 

Again they pushed their way into the crowd, and 
this time Banning held Jessup with an air of authority. 

“I noticed to-night on the program that your name 
is just given as ‘Miss Jessup,’ ” he said presently. “I 
like the simplicity of it. It’s a genuine relief after 
some of the fancy nomenclature adopted so often for 
the stage.” 

“Do you like it?” 

“It’s distinctive. But it leaves me curious.” 


'65 


JESSUP, 

“Curious? What about?” 

“The rest of your name.” 

“ ‘Miss Jessup’ seems quite enough,” she answered. 

“For some purposes perhaps,” said Banning. 

“Oh, I think it’s good enough for all purposes.” 

“But I propose to call you by your first name.” 

“But I’ve dropped it. I haven’t any.” 

“You’re joking.” 

“Not at all,” laughed Jessup. “I didn’t like my 
first name, so I dropped it, and now I haven’t any.” 

Banning looked at her in astonishment. “I nevei; 
heard of such a thing.” 

“Then I’m not commonplace?” 

“Decidedly not,” declared Banning emphatically. 

Jessup, disturbed by the direction of the conversa¬ 
tion, and unable at the moment to extricate herself 
from its complications, lamely replied: “I’m glad you 
think so.” 

“You are delightfully original, Miss Jessup. Imag¬ 
ine a girl not liking her first name, dropping it, and 
going serenely through life without one. Now that 
I can’t, I confess that I never in my life wanted so much 
to call anyone by her first name. I suppose I’ll have 
to invent one.” 

“What satisfaction would that be?” protested 
Jessup. 

“Tell me,” said Banning, “did you acquire all this 
originality, or were you born with it?” 

“Doubtless I was born with it.” 

“Your people must have been unusual,” replied 
Banning, regarding her intently. 


66 


JESSUP 

Jessup wanted to escape, but Banning’s authorita¬ 
tive hold did not relax. She knew she should have 
had wits enough to steer a less embarrassing conversa¬ 
tional course. She wondered what possessed him to 
persist, but she dared not betray any resentment. 

“Your mother must have been charming,” Banning 
was saying. 

“She was considered so, I believe.” 

“And popular, no doubt.” 

“Too popular.” 

“I imagine she had a good deal of courage and 
initiative,” said Banning speculatively. 

Jessup forced herself to reply: “She was some¬ 
times headstrong, they tell me.” 

“To the usual alarm of her family, of course.” 

“They never understood her,” answered Jessup un¬ 
comfortably. 

“Parents rarely do,” returned Banning. “I hope 
you fared better with yours.” 

“I don’t know how I fared with them. I was quite 
young when they died.” 

“Oh,” said Banning sympathetically. 

Jessup’s thoughts took a long swing- back through 
the past. She looked at Banning with a tinge of sus¬ 
picion. She wondered why he had been questioning 
her so closely. She thought she would collapse if he 
asked her another question. 

Mercifully, he had stopped, but it gave Jessup a 
chill to reflect that she had not prepared for just such 
an emergency. She resolved never to run such a risk 
again. She knew that she dared lose no time invent- 


JESSUP 67 

ing a plausible family background. It seemed to her 
that her voice and manner must have advertised her 
embarrassment. She realized that the time might come 
when she must disclose the truth to someone, but this 
was not the time and Ivan Banning was not the person. 

“My own parents,” Banning was saying, “lived to 
see me disappoint them in nearly all their hopes 
for me.” 

“Disappoint them?” 

“Mother had her heart set on my taking clerical 
orders and leading a very pious life, while my father, 
who wore himself out at his legal practice, insisted on 
my going into the steel business of a remote relative 
and making money. Would you like me better if I 
were a fat manufacturer with gloomy offices in Pitts¬ 
burgh?” 

“I can’t imagine you fat,” said Jessup. 

“Or a rich manufacturer?” 

“In that case, I’d have had to rely entirely on my 
imagination, for I’d never have met you.” 

“Why not? This is one of the places they all come 
to. The Great White Way wasn’t lit up for the 
poor.” 

“I wonder what it would be like to meet million¬ 
aire?” 

“I can trot some around,” offered Banning. “No, 
I take that back. If I introduced any, they’d be sure 
to monopolize you.” 

“I shouldn’t mind,” she bantered. 

“So you prefer that the monopoly should be Held by 
someone other than myself?” ^ 


68 


JESSUP 

“How can I tell? I’ve seen so little of you.” 

“My mistake. I’m going to correct it. May I see 
you again to-morrow?” 

“Twice in the same week? Too much gayety, I’m 
afraid,” she parried. 

“Then next Monday.” 

“Perhaps.” 

“I’ll telephone.” 

Repeatedly Jessup saw Banning studying her. Once 
he said: “Do you know, you remind me of someone ? 
I don’t know who it is. It occurred to me the first 
time I saw you. I must have known some of your 
people.” 

“I hardly think so,” Jessup answered hastily. “We 
lived in the western part of the state.” 

“Oh, yes, to be sure. You’ve mentioned that. Still, 
there’s something persistently reminiscent about you. 
One minute I’m sure it’s the quality of your voice, the 
next I think it’s the expression around your mouth, 
and then again it’s your laugh.” 

“Goodness, I hope you will never see me cry!” 
laughed Jessup. 

“Except that in that case I’d have the pleasure of 
comforting you.” Banning reached across the table 
for her hand. “The next time, let me try,” he said. 


CHAPTER VI 


The delightful novelty of having Banning to dance 
with, and of going with him to an occasional concert, 
for a drive with him in his car, or for an exhilarating 
wintry walk, gave Jessup singular satisfaction. While 
he made it obvious that he was interested, he had man¬ 
aged to keep their companionship comparatively free 
from the infiltration of sentimentality and from emo¬ 
tional tension. It was precisely the kind of friendship 
that Jessup craved. Under its amiable influence New 
York’s ominous, forbidding, and threatening implica¬ 
tions that had at first oppressed her, became subdued 
and less insistent. Looking back upon her early days 
in the city, she could not help wondering how she had 
endured the isolated struggle and maintained her 
courage. 

One sunny day in November, early in the afternoon, 
she set out in search of an antique shop that she had 
heard of. It was located somewhere in Lexington 
Avenue, in a neighborhood entirely strange to her. 
She had little or no definite notion of what she was 
hunting—perhaps a vase, or table, or a pair of candle¬ 
sticks ; something that she could call her own and that 
would relieve the deadly and impersonal atmosphere 
of her furnished room. 

She found the sequestered shop at length, but dls- 

69 


70 JESSUP 

covered nothing that she felt like spending any money 
for. But she did find something that afternoon that 
arrested her interest and repaid her for the long walk. 
She discovered that portion of Twenty-seventh Street 
that lies between Lexington and Third Avenues. It 
was a pocket of New York unlike any of its multitudi¬ 
nous vestments that she had hitherto seen. 

Here, remote from the theatrical glare of Broad¬ 
way, she discovered an old house of gray brick that 
had been made over into a repertoire theater. A sign 
was inscribed “The Bramhall Play House,” and in 
front of the theater was a tall iron fence. On one 
side was a red brick Italian restaurant with vines grow¬ 
ing on its foreign-looking iron balcony, with a pleasant 
little patch of grass in a minute front yard, and on the 
other side was an industrious little establishment called 
the O. K. Sign Co., with sundry samples of its com¬ 
mercial lettering displayed in the window. Across the 
street, unknown to Jessup and doubtless also unknown 
to the sign company, in a modest studio with yellow cur¬ 
tains at its narrow windows, over a Turkish basement 
cafe, labored a gifted artist who was noted from one 
end of the country to the other for his lettering. 

Jessup stood gazing at this quiet street. She liked 
its pale green flower-boxes, jade-colored window- 
frames, and old iron grilles. She discovered several 
trees that appeared to be growing bravely out of the 
very masonry of houses. Some of the red brick walls 
yvcrc so old that the surface of the brick was peeling 
away like the skin of a sun-burned face. There were 
funny-looking old shutters, once green, but dyed by 


JESSUP 71 

time into pigments that defied identification. Near by 
was an Armenian eating-house, noted for its sword¬ 
fish, served broiled red as a lobster, cut into squares, 
and stuck on a spit with alternating pieces of tomato. 

In the mellow sun of the fall afternoon, Jessup 
beheld a street of charming tints and quaint walls. 
She stood looking at the gamboge yellows, tranquil 
reds, and aged violets, and thought it would be fas¬ 
cinating if she could find an inexpensive apartment in 
this block. 

A sign, “Ye Old Times Company,” caught Her eye 
in front of a diminutive shop. She crossed to it, tak¬ 
ing it for another antique dealer’s place. But instead, 
she discovered an assortment of glass jars containing, 
according to their labels, such an amazing variety of 
things as crushed rye, cracked corn, whole wheat, malt, 
juniper berries, dried black grapes, Dalmatian cher¬ 
ries, pitted prunes, Turkish raisins, and apricots. 
There was a mystifying assortment of filter paper, corn 
sugar, charcoal, syphon holders, valves, plugs, and 
crown caps, aging kegs and alcohol testers, all identi¬ 
fied by labels. As Jessup’s glance roved from object 
to object, it began dawning on her what they were for, 
and then she imagined herself brewing hospitable bev¬ 
erages. 

.This carried her back to the kitchen of her grand¬ 
mother, to the huge Dutch cupboard, and the familiar 
fragrance of cookies and fresh bread, of brown sugar, 
vanilla, nutmeg and allspice. For the first time in 
New York, Jessup felt homesick for the place in which 


72 JESSUP. 

she had spent many hours. A desire for a kitchen of 
her own suddenly occupied her. 

A few days later, Jessup paid a second visit to the 
same locality. She rang numerous doorbells, and 
made inquiries for apartments. The migratory es¬ 
sence of Manhattan had crept steadily Into her blood, 
and vapors of restlessness and discontent with her pres¬ 
ent abode were forming Insistently. The street In 
which she lived seemed unlike her; there was a sullen, 
beaten air about Its rooming houses that seemed more 
and more at odds with the quality of her energy. The 
brown lifelessness of the walls, the dreary sameness of 
the entrances did not reflect the fervor that steamed In 
her veins and vitalized her tissues. It seemed to her 
a neighborhood with its back to the wall, ever weakly 
on the defensive, and watching day by day for Broad¬ 
way’s bits and crumbs to be blown In Its direction. 

But this new locality seemed to supply something 
of those elements that Jessup had lacked. Tucked 
away between Fourth Avenue’s plunge of traffic and the 
East Side’s polyglot congestion, it had all the fascina¬ 
tion of the unexpected. On seeing It for the first time, 
she had felt a deep content, fancying that here was a 
place In which she could pursue her destiny more freely. 

This Idea kept growing, and when she finally en¬ 
gaged an unpretentious apartment, from whose win¬ 
dows she could see the Bramhall Play House, and took 
possession, she was pleasantly aware of shaking off re¬ 
tarding and stifling Influences. 

The longer journey to and from the theater and art 
school was not Irksome. Always there was a fresh 


JESSUP 73 

delight in returning to her apartment In the quiet block. 
She liked to get her hands on the dishes In the kitchen¬ 
ette, or to curl up in the armchair and surrender to 
reveries. 

She would wonder who had lived In this house be¬ 
fore her, what kind of families and fortunes It had 
sheltered, what births and romances and deaths It had 
beheld. In her former room, morbid fears had often 
terrified her as she surveyed the gloomy walls and 
windows. Imagining suicides putting an end to disheart¬ 
ened and broken careers. But here these fearful spec¬ 
ulations did not attend her. She was reminded of 
tranquil lives and happier occupants. 

One raw, rainy January afternoon, a taxi stopped 
in front of the house, and a man hurried in. Jessup 
had at last yielded to Ivan Banning’s eagerness to have 
a look at her apartment, and In a moment he was sur¬ 
veying her and the living-room. 

“A fireplace and everything!” he exclaimed with en¬ 
thusiasm. “I think your place Is perfect. How did 
you ever discover it?” 

“I was prowling about in search of antiques,” an¬ 
swered Jessup, “and this Is what I found. Give me 
the umbrella. Take off your wet coat. You couldn’t 
have picked a more wretched day to be out In.” 

“Hickory I” said Banning, going to the fire. “You’re 
in luck. So am I, to be here. My only complaint is 
that you never let me come before.” 

“Stop complaining; sit down and light your pipe.” 

“Correct. Pipe smoke is the only kind that really 


! 


74 JESSUP 

goes with hickory logs. Listen to that rain. If it 
turns to snow, we’ll have an old-fashioned snowstorm.” 

“I hope it does,” returned Jessup. “It seems ages 
since I’ve tramped through snow.” 

“We’ll go together. New York’s a picture when 
it’s covered with snow. It looks like a different city. 
Give me a blizzard that roars and blusters. For all 
its competition, New York gets enervating, and a snow¬ 
storm is just what we need. Gives one something to 
resist.” 

Jessup sat musing. “There’s something austere 
about a lot of snow,” she replied. “It can’t help but 
have a cleansing effect on a town like this. A spir¬ 
itual cleansing, I mean. I don’t know whether it ever 
snowed in Greece or not, but there’s something about 
snow that puts me in mind of Greek tragedy. A big¬ 
ness and loftiness.” 

Banning stopped smoking and looked at Jessup. 
“Every time you talk to me you surprise me,” he said. 

“Surprise you?” 

“Yes, your ideas. Your slants. Your point of view 
on things. Every time I see you, you bash in the head 
the general notion that the primary equipment of a 
show girl is a pretty face and a vacant mind.” 

“That just shows that you’re laboring under a 
wrong belief. Few show girls have only either pretty 
faces or vacant minds. There’s a girl in our company 
who reads Andreyev in the original and who scoffs at 
George Moore as an intellectual lightweight.” 

Banning looked incredulous. 

“Another is the wife of a professor at Columbia 


JESSUP 7-5 

% 

University. She is a graduate of Barnard and has Her 
heart set on playing Shakespeare.” 

“But what made her go in for musical comedy I ’ 
demanded Banning with interest. 

“To prove to her husband that she takes her stage 
ambition seriously and actually means business.” 

“I suppose you are aiming at drama,” said Ban¬ 
ning. 

Jessup hesitated. “I hardly know,” she said, study¬ 
ing him. She was wondering what kind of showing 
he would have made, had he been compelled to stand 
up alone against the onslaught of New York. It was 
fortunate that he had been spared rebuffs, blows and 
humiliations, that he had been able to avoid the 
harsher contacts. He appeared too fine-grained for 
the world’s indifference and roughness. She was grate¬ 
ful to know that he had been shielded, and these reflec¬ 
tions brought a feeling of tenderness. Afraid that it 
might be visible in her eyes, she looked away. 

“I had an idea that you might be figuring on going 
into drama,” Banning was saying. “You seem more 
suited to it.” 

Jessup’s reply escaped before she could check it. 
“Would you like it better if I were in drama?” she 
asked. 

“I’d like you no matter where you were,” he said. 

“I didn’t mean that,” replied Jessup with sudden 
embarrassment. “What I was wondering was whether 
you think my being in musical comedy is a mistake.” 

“No doubt it’s excellent training.” 

Jessup shrugged her shoulders. “Well, at least it 


7(5 JESSUP 

accustoms one to getting in and out of almost endless 
changes of costume in a hurry.” 

“Yes, I imagine you can dress for dinner in half 
the time it takes most women.” 

“That’s one ordeal that I’ve been spared. I haven’t 
had to dress for dinner in an age.” 

“That’s a mistake,” answered Banning. “You 
should be compelled to at frequent intervals. I’m going 
to see to it that you do.” 

“I wouldn’t know how to act.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“Are you so impatient to see me in an acting part?” 

“As to that, you are sure to give a distinguished ac¬ 
count of yourself either on the stage or off. You are 
inherently an actress.” 

“Then you wouldn’t advise me to try to get some 
illustrating to do? I’m getting more seriously inter¬ 
ested in drawing all the time.” 

“Your career will take care of itself. Why, you’re 
just a youngster.” 

“Do you think so?” 

“Twenty?” asked Banning. 

“And three.” 

“Now we’re really beginning to get acquainted,” 
said Banning with satisfaction. “Another time, per¬ 
haps, you will be willing a divulge a more closely 
guarded secret.” 

“What secret?” 

“Your name. When I discover what Miss Jessup 
you are, I shall feel that I am able to report progress.” 

“Report progress? To whom?” 


JESSUP, 77 

Banning’s answer was not delayed. “To my 
mother, for one.” 

“To your mother?” 

“Surely. I want her to meet you.” 

“I’d like to meet her, of course.” 

“You’d like each other,” said Banning confidently. 
“Doris has often spoken of you at home. Meant to 
have you up to dinner. Now that she has rushed off to 
Europe, and no telling how long she’s going to stay, 
I’m going to have you up. The last time mother spoke 
of you, she wondered if you were by any chance related 
to the Howard Jessups of Buffalo.” 

Banning’s last remark made the old uneasiness creep 
into Jessup’s nerves; but it was with perfect self- 
possession that she lit a fresh cigarette. 

“The Howard Jessups of Buffalo,” she repeated 
• thoughtfully. “It seems to me that I’ve heard of them. 
But we’re not related. No, I’m sure we’re not. We 
were the Jessups of St. Louis.” 

“St. Louis. That makes you almost a southerner,” 
said Banning with interest. 

“No, just plain middle-westerner,” returned Jessup. 
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in St. Louis?” she 
asked. 

She knew that she was toying with a dangerous sub¬ 
ject, but for the moment it fascinated her and made 
her reckless. She waited for Banning to reply, vvish- 
ing that she had named some city farther west, per¬ 
haps Denver or San Francisco. 

“No, I’ve never been out in that part of the coun¬ 
try,” he said. 


78 JESSUP 

His reply relieved her. She shrank from this neces¬ 
sity for falsehood, inevitable though it seemed. 

“Did you like it out there?” Banning asked. 

“I was carried out of St. Louis in the arms of my 
nurse, and I’ve never been back,” answered Jessup, 
realizing that now that she had begun, there was no 
escape. 

“Then of course you were too young to have had 
any very vivid impressions.” 

“All I know about St. Louis was what my grand¬ 
father told me,” continued Jessup, thankful for the 
opportunity to interject at least a sentence of truth. 

“When your company goes on the road, you’ll prob¬ 
ably play St. Louis, and that will give you a chance to 
visit the neighborhood in which you were born.” 

“I never felt much curiosity about it,” returned 
Jessup. 

“You’d find it engrossing to go exploring and to 
find the very house,” added Banning. 

At his words, a chill went through the listener. She 
feared that the color was leaving her face, and strove 
to appear unconcerned. 

The rain, driven by a smartly blowing wind, was 
pounding the windows harder. 

“This is a terrible night for you to have to go to 
the theater,” said Banning, crossing to the window. 
“It’s nearly six. I’ll telephone for a taxi and we’ll 
have dinner.” 

“Let’s stay here,” suggested Jessup, welcoming the 
change of topic. “I’ll see what’s left in the kitchen¬ 
ette.” 


79 


JESSUP 

“I didn’t know you were so domestic.” 

“Oh, r ’m a rank amateur when It comes to prepar¬ 
ing a meal. But perhaps we can manage.” 

Jessup had gone to the kitchenette, and was taking 
an Inventory. “There’s some bread, coffee, cream, 
currant jelly, spaghetti, a can of salmon, and some crab- 
meat,” she enumerated. 

“It sounds like a shore dinner. And with the rain 
pounding on your windows like a surf, the illusion will 
be complete,” said Banning. 

Jessup put on an apron, and lit the gas. 

“What may I do to help?” asked Banning diligently. 

“You may fix the table. Draw It In front of the fire. 
Then you may put on another log.” 

“By Jove, I’m glad It’s raining,” answered Banning, 
following Jessup’s Instructions. “This Is great.” 

“Don’t brag too soon,” warned Jessup. 
until you see If you get enough to eat. See If you can 
open this tin. Here’s a can-opener. We’ll have a 
Newburg. We’ll set a new style. Newburg for din¬ 
ner instead of for supper. Don’t hurt yourself.” 

Banning paused In his labor. “If you’ll be my 
nurse, I’ll Inflict a first-class gash. Miss Jessup.” 

“I’ll have to wear everything to-night but a nurse’s 
costume, so no heroics, please.” 

When they sat down, Jessup said: “Shore dinner, 
did you say? Too bad we haven’t any steamed clams. 
I feel steamed myself after standing over that stove.” 

“You emulate the clam In only one respect.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Your secrecy about your name. This Is the most 


8o 


JESSUP 

formal informal dinner I ever attended. I may set 
the table and open cans, but I have to address you 
as Miss Jessup.” 

“Then drop the ‘Miss’ and call me ‘Jessup.’ ” 

“No, I couldn’t do that. It’s too harsh,” objected 
Banning. “Why won’t you tell me your first name ?” 

* “But I’ve dropped it and haven’t any,” protested 
Jessup. 

“What’s all the mystery, anyway?” demanded Ban¬ 
ning with a note of impatience. 

“There isn’t any mystery. Some people use three or 
even four names. You content yourself with two. As 
for me, I am satisfied with one.” 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Fll name you.” 

“Fine. What do you propose?” 

“If I propose, it’s got to be the name Banning,” he 
answered promptly. 

‘‘Don’t be ridiculous,” retorted Jessup. “What 
name do you suggest?” 

“Your name ought to be Gloria.” 

“Nonsense,” scoffed Jessup. “Too flamboyant. It 
sounds like a sunset.” 

“Well, how about something plain, like Jane? Jane 
Jessup isn’t so bad.” 

“No alliterations.” 

“What about Peg?” 

“Too wooden.” 

“How do you like Victoria?” 

“Mid-Victoria might do,” she replied. 

“No, that sounds like chaperons and prayer-books,” 
objected Banning. “I have it. Diana! That’s clas- 


s 


JESSUP. 


8i 


skal without being old-fashioned. That’s refreshing. 
It has a bright, luminous quality like yourself. It’s 
more like you than anything I can think of. It fits 
you exactly. It suggests the sun, the open, and all the 
graces of the pagan huntress.” 

“Fortune huntress?” asked Jessup. 

“I can’t imagine anything so trivial as a fortune 
interesting you,” said Banning. 

Now that he was able to address Jessup without the 
formality of the “Miss,” their relations seemed spon¬ 
taneously to have reached a new phase. Despite the 
artificiality of the structure upon which this new friend¬ 
ship rested, it was singularly gratifying to Jessup. She 
felt less hopelessly alone. She felt as if Banning’s 
bestowal of another name upon her had severed one 
of the strings that tied her to events that she longed 
to forget She felt subtly reassured and encouraged. 


CHAPTER VII 


One of the cruelties of Broadway is that It beckons 
and distracts multitudes who are totally unfitted for 
its requirements. But sometimes It discovers desirable 
qualities In those who have least expected to be wooed 
by Its baffling spirit. 

The more Jessup had seen of the theater, the less 
Inclined she had often felt to remain part of It. Its 
superficial excitement had become more and more de¬ 
pressing to her. Despite Ivan Banning’s protests to 
the contrary, she knew that he was not enthusiastic 
about her connection with the chorus, and this gave In¬ 
creasing Impetus to her anxiety to be out of it. 

One night, Jessup and a number of others of the 
chorus were Instructed to remain at the theater to be 
tried out In some songs. One of the minor principals 
had been given notice of dismissal and her place had 
to be filled immediately. Dewart, the conductor, was 
at the piano; Charles Salant, the producer, with sev¬ 
eral of his assistants, was out In front. 

“Try that again. Get some life Into It but don’t be 
so jumpy,” growled Dewart when one of the girls had 
finished. 

“Never mind, that’ll do,” Interrupted the producer. 
“Don’t have her sing It again. Try someone else.” 

Another was called, while Salant and his assistants 
listened critically. Salant was a clean-cut businesslike 

82 


JESSUP 83 

man of thirty-eight. Unlike most of his associates, 
his manner was reserved and studious, and he rarely 
raised his voice or became excited. His hair and com¬ 
plexion were dark and his eyes alert but unmistakably 
moody. The backer of his various ventures was said 
to be one of the big New York merchants. 

“Shall we try that again, Mr. Salant?” asked De¬ 
wart. 

“That’s enough. Who’s next?” 

“Miss Jessup!” called Dewart. 

Jessup stepped to the front of the stage. She ¥^"*8 
quite familiar with the song, but her nervous eagerness 
led her to quicken the tempo. 

“Here I Here I” cried the conductor. “That’s not 
the time! Stick to the piano, can’t you ?” 

The producer started toward the stage. “Let her 
sing it her own way,” he said with interest. 

Again Jessup began the song. Salant watched her 
closely, and then said to the conductor: 

“That’s more like it. That number has always been 
much too slow. It’s been the one piece of cheese in the 
show. Let her sing it again,” he said. 

Again Jessup began, and this time, instead of at¬ 
tempting to adhere to the customary interpretation, she 
gave her own. 

“You’re getting some new twists into it,” com¬ 
mented the owner, quick to notice the changes. 

“It seems to me that’s the way it ought to go,” an¬ 
swered Jessup. 

“I don’t mind. I like the way you sing it. What do 
you think, Nordahl?” asked Salant. 


^84 JESSUP 

“She’s right. She’s right. She’s putting a new 
curve on the ball. The house will respond. You’ll see,” 
answered Nordahl with his unfailing intensity. 

“Let her try the other song,” said Salant. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know all the words,” said Jessup 
>vith misgivings. 

“Never mind the words. Hum it,” replied Dewart. 

With Dewart’s assistance, she got through, and 
iagain there were comments of approval. 

“That’s good work, Miss Jessup,” declared the 
owner. “The part is yours. You start in it next 
Monday night.” 

The following Monday, freshly costumed and duly 
coached for the part, Jessup made her debut in the 
role. As to dialogue, it was only a bit, but the songs 
gave her a first opportunity to face an audience alone. 
Indifferent, however, to a prolonged career in musical i 
comedy, she made her first entrance without the nervous 
fear that she would doubtless have felt, had she thought 
there was a great deal at stake. She displayed an easy 
naturalness, and as a result, she began introducing 
mannerisms that had not figured in the rehearsals. 

The audience, quick to detect a subtle comedy quality, 
laughed at lines that had never previously provoked any 
mirth. Seasoned actors are usually ready to give their 
jsouls for a laugh; but Jessup was far from gratified. 
It was the first time that she had ever been laughed at 
by a theaterful of people, and she felt resentful and 
^shamed. 

The leading man, delighted with her work, urged 


JESSUP 85 

her to keep it up. She did keep it up, drawing laugh 
upon laugh, and keying up what had once been dull 
moments in the performance, into animated and infec¬ 
tious episodes. Her first song brought a smart burst 
of applause; and the second, which came in the last act, 
was so enthusiastically received that Dewart promptly 
gave his orchestra the cue for an encore. 

Salant rushed to her after her final exit, to offer his 
congratulations. 

“It was a hit, girlie, a hit!” said the owner, wringing 
both her hands. “I didn’t know it was in you. You’re 
all right. Keep it up and you’ll be a success I” 

But a little later, when Vic, of the chorus, returned 
to the dressing-room, she was amazed to find Jessup 
in tears. 

“My dear! What on earth is the matter?” 
demanded the show-girl. “You’re a perfect knock-out. 
You ought to be kicking a hole in the sky.” 

“I feel like crawling off somewhere and hiding. It 
makes me sick to be laughed at,” answered Jessup. 

“Why, you poor nut!” gasped the other, leaning 
weakly against the wall. “Laughed at? That’s just 
exactly what you want. What did you expect them to 
do when you pulled the funny stuff?” 

“I don’t know what I expected,” whimpered Jessup. 

“My God, you don’t seem to know what luck you’re 
in, kid. Most girls have to sweat blood to get even a 
look at a chance like this. The men with the say-so 
usually want everything. You’ve got to sleep with 
’em. You’ve got to belong to them!” 


86 


JESSUP 

Jessup had been playing her new part for more than 
a week, before Ivan Banning had any intimation of it. 
He had been in Philadelphia for several days, and 
when on his return he telephoned Jessup, she said: 

“Do you suppose you could stand it to see the show 
again r 

“I can stand it as long as you’re in it,” he replied. 

“Drop in to-night, then, why don’t you? I have a 
surprise for you.” 

“You have? I’ll be there, Diana. How do you 
like your new name?” 

“I like it if you do.” 

“I find myself writing it on newspapers, blotters, 
menus and telephone directories. I’m like a small 
boy with a new game. How have you been? All 
right?” 

“Yes, thanks. And you?” 

“I’ve been ridiculously busy. But it’s comforting to 
reflect that if the grand rush keeps up. I’ll be in a fair 
way to make some money.” 

Banning attended the performance that night. He 
arrived too late to look at the program, and was 
not aware of the change in cast until Jessup’s first 
entrance, and at the end of the act he rushed out for a 
quantity of flowers and ordered them sent at once to 
her dressing-room. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” he demanded 
when they were at supper. 

“I had to let a decent time elapse to get my bearings. 
Every day during that first week I had visions of being 
ordered back into the chorus,” answered Jessup. 


JESSUP 87 

Banning winced. “That would have been too bad,” 
he said. 

Jessup noticed it. As she studied him, she fancied 
that he could think cutting thoughts and say cutting 
things. 

“I should never have suspected that you had such a 
flair for comedy,” Banning was saying. 

“Did I amuse you?” asked Jessup dryly. 

“Very much.” 

“I didn’t know either that I was a comedienne until 
my first night in this part. I went on, and all of a 
sudden I heard people laughing.” 

“I don’t wonder. You are deliciously amusing. It 
must be a great satisfaction to you,” replied Banning. 

“I would hardly say so. A few minutes after I 
appeared in this part for the first time, I was crying.” 

“Crying?” 

“Blubbering,” stated Jessup. 

“But why?” 

“It seemed beastly to be laughed at. You know the 
kind of riff-raff there is in an audience. I must have 
intuitively dreaded it. Maybe it was just that dread 
that made me satisfied to be in the chorus. You know 
there’s something impersonal about being in the chorus. 
One feels more protected. One is just part of the 
picture, like a chair or table, or piece of scenery.” 

Banning looked at her with deepened interest. “I 
am discovering new qualities to admire in you every 
time I see you,” he said. “You really are adorable.” 

Jessup was invited soon afterwards to dine with 


^8 JESSUP 

Banning and his mother. It was the first time she had 
been asked, and she suspected that if she had still been 
a member of the chorus, she would not have been 
invited now. She might have declined, but for a 
vigorous curiosity to meet Mrs. Banning, and because 
of the steadily advancing belief that she was falling 
in love with him. 

The Bannings lived in a house in upper Lexington 
Avenue. There was an elegance, an air of an earlier 
day about its heavy oaks and walnuts, its paneled 
walls, and Jamaican butler. 

Ivan’s mother was a woman of about sixty. She was 
tall, heavy, and confidently poised, and her grayish face 
displayed a multitude of little wrinkles. Her eyes were 
large and blue and languid, as though they had viewed 
the world from numerous angles and found it rather a 
bore. Jessup felt defensive and on her guard. 

“How do you do?” greeted Mrs. Banning. She 
extended her arm only from the elbow, and retained 
Jessup’s hand for a moment, regarding her inspectively. 

The home had a sombre dignity that impressed the 
visitor, but kept her ill at ease. These chairs which 
had been sat in for two or three generations of the 
Banning family seemed to be brooded over by the 
jealous ghosts of former occupants. Jessup had not 
been in the place for a quarter of an hour before she 
began to generate an uneasy resentment against old 
furniture. The family traditions that had enriched 
Ivan Banning’s personality and background for her, 
now rose between them like interfering obstacles. 

Recalling Ivan’s remarks concerning his mother’s 


JESSUP 89 

Inquiry as to whether she was related to the Howard 
Jessups of Buffalo, Jessup had naturally anticipated 
further questioning at this time, and had taken the 
precaution of preparing plausible answers. It was at 
dinner that the expected Inquiries politely began. 

“Ivan has told me of your success on the stage,” said 
Mrs. Banning. 

“Fm afraid It’s not a very conspicuous success,” 
replied Jessup. “My part Is only a small one.” 

“On the contrary,” put In Ivan, “you make It very 
conspicuous. I want you to see her In It, mother.” 

“I go to the theater so seldom,” sighed Mrs. Ban¬ 
ning. “But I do want to see you. There was a time 
when I never missed an opening at the Empire. Espe¬ 
cially the premieres of John Drew. But I’m not so 
young as I once was, and It Is becoming more and more 
of an effort for me to get to the theater. Is it true, my 
dear, that, as one of our younger critics has said, the 
most essential qualification for a stage career is to 
have had a grandmother who was an accomplished 
actress?” 

“I suppose It would do no harm to have been born in 
the wings,” answered Jessup. 

“Fancy!” uttered Mrs. Banning, lifting her eyes 
with a critical look compounded of tolerance and 
sophistication. 

“I don’t believe there were ever any ancestors of 
mine on the stage,” continued Jessup. “Doubtless they 
would be appropriately shocked if they should find me 
there.” 

Mrs. Banning looked more pleased. “It Isn’t the 


90 JESSUP 

easiest thing in the world for those of an older genera¬ 
tion to appreciate the views of the younger. There 
was a time not so far back when parents actually 
objected to having their daughters become actresses.” 

“Unfortunately I was unable to consult mine,” 
answered Jessup patiently. “I lost them both when I 
was very young.” 

“Indeed? I used to know some Jessups,” said Mrs. 
Banning reflectively. “Are you by any chance related 
to the Howard Jessups of Buffalo?” 

“Not to my knowledge,” returned Jessup, glad that 
she had prepared herself for just this inquiry. 

“They were splendid people,” said the hostess. “We 
met them the first time on a Mediterranean cruise. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Jessup were subsequently lost on 
the Titanic, I believe you said that Miss Jessup is a 
St. Louis girl?” she added, turning to her son. 

“I was born there,” said Jessup simply. “But I was 
yery young when I left.” 

“.Yes,” said Mrs. Banning. “Did I get the impres¬ 
sion that your father was a lawyer?” she asked, looking 
from Jessup to her son. “The law is such an interesting 
profession. My husband was a lawyer.” 

“My father was interested in grain,” answered 
Jessup. “He owned a number of large elevators 
located out in Missouri and Kansas. He was very 
successful, but he lost heavily in the panic of 1893.” 

“Yes, I remember that panic only too well. It was a 
most unfortunate affair. Some of our friends lost 
everything. We, however, were the gainers that year. 
It was the year Ivan was born.” 


JESSUP 91 

Ivan bowed. “Decent of you to put it that way,” 
he replied. “Especially since I refused to go into the 
ministry.” 

“I have never stood in the way of self-determination 
on your part, Ivan. You have never really disap¬ 
pointed me. And I don!t think you ever will.” 

Jessup gathered that Mrs. Banning’s statement was 
a thrust at Ivan’s interest in herself. 

From her dinner with the Bannings, Jessup carried 
away the persistent impression that Ivan’s mother dis¬ 
liked her. She felt like a lower form of life that had 
been curiously placed on a slide for inspection, like an 
insect that had been pushed and prodded and examined. 
The recollection of it made her furious. At times it left 
her vastly depressed and permeated with an embittered 
sense of inferiority that she was unable to combat. 
Again, she strove, for Ivan’s sake, not to despise Mrs. 
Banning for her air of patronizing superiority. 

By degrees, Mrs. Banning’s lofty air seemed to 
resolve itself into an impersonal and oppressive symbol 
of society, judging her and condemning her. It seemed 
to Jessup as if a subtle enmity emanated in somber 
currents from established society wherever she chanced 
to touch it. This thought would often push through 
her mind at the theater, and would goad her into added 
efforts to conquer the indifference of the occupants of 
the boxes and to plunge them against their wills into 
laughter. And when they laughed, she would hate 
them for it, and would long for the day when she could 


92 JESSUP 

hurl her stage-trappings into a corner and never see 
them again. 

Jessup recalled how she had hesitated to meet Mrs. 
Banning. A cloudy prescience seemed to have issued 
its warning, but she had been unable to translate the 
wavering impression into a definite understanding, and, 
as a result, she had advanced blindly into what had 
proved to be a danger-zone. It angered her that she 
had not been aware enough to foresee what might 
happen and thus to save herself from the sickening 
consequences. 

Having committed the blunder, Jessup fell prey to 
embittered introspections that pursued her incessantly. 
She was denied the comfort of specific resentment 
against a tangible affront on the part of Ivan’s mother. 
She had been wounded by unkindly intent, rather than 
by objective weapons, and it was this mode of veiled 
attack that left her bewildered and afraid. She 
reviewed her relations with Ivan, and was preyed upon 
by morbid suspicions and surmises. There were 
moments when her faith in him became hardened and 
roughened into doubts. Twice, when he telephoned, 
she put him off with pleas of being busy with other 
engagements. The third time he called up, he was 
importunate, declaring that he must see her at once, 
and obtained permission to go to her apartment. 

Jessup received him with an ease that was deceptive 
and disarming. Her face was pale. The red warmth 
of her lips seemed enough to melt the snowy whiteness 
of her teeth. 

“It’s ten days since I saw you,” said Banning 


JESSUP 93 

anxiously. “Fve got to leave town to-morrow for a 
v/eek, possibly two, and simply had to see you before 
1 went.” 

“I’m glad you ran over. Where are you going?” 

“Boston. Things seem to be picking up. I hope 
it lasts. Much as I hate to spend a week or two in 
New England.” 

“Your mother will miss you.” 

“I suppose she will. She has asked about you several 
times.” 

“I didn’t imagine she had given me a second 
thought.” 

“Why not?” asked Banning, puzzled. “Why 
shouldn’t she? She is very much interested in you.” 

“Oh, I hardly think so. It was a mistake for me to 
meet your mother. I ought to have known better,” 
said Jessup abruptly. 

Banning detected a sudden bitterness in her voice. 
He protested: “What’s happened? What’s the 
trouble? What do you mean, Diana? I’ve never seen 
you in this mood. You seem to have gathered a very 
distorted impression.” 

“Oh, no, I haven’t,” replied Jessup quickly. “She 
doesn’t like anything about me.” 

“Nonsense,” he scoffed. 

“You know she doesn’t.” 

“You’ve got her all wrong,” spoke Banning patiently. 
“Mother is naturally undemonstrative. Our whole 
family is. But if she seemed cold to you, I’m sure she 
didn’t mean it that way. She likes you and admires 
you. She has said so repeatedly,” 


5 ? JESSUP 

“She doesn’t Have to say it,” answered Jessup with 
spirit. 

“Diana!” 

“Don’t call me Diana. It’s not my name.” 

“I’ve named you Diana, and that makes it your 
name so far as I am concerned,” declared Banning. 
He leaned sympathetically forward. “Won’t you 
please tell me what is troubling you?” 

Jessup’s brooding eyes remained fixed on the hearth¬ 
rug. “If I wasn’t good enough to meet your mother 
when I was in the chorus, I’m not good enough to meet 
her now,” she said crisply. “I haven’t changed.” 

“Don’t be absurd,” he protested gently. “She 
couldn’t help but love you.” 

Jessup gave a short laugh. “It doesn’t matter much 
one way or the other.” 

“On the contrary. It matters a great deal. I won’t 
have you depressed and made unhappy by mistaken 
ideas. Believe me when I say that you are only 
imagining these things.” 

Jessup shook her head. A wave of bitterness pro¬ 
voked her to say: “Don’t you suppose I know? She 
doesn’t think I’m on the same plane with her.” 

“For God’s sake, Diana 1 ” exclaimed Banning. He 
crossed to her, and sat on the arm of her chair. “Look 
here, what kind of a gloomy depression has got hold 
of you, anyway? This won’t do. You’ve got to come 
out of it. Why, your hands are as cold as ice. I’ll 
build a fire.” 

“Don’t bother. I don’t want a fire,” she said. Her 
lips curled a little, and she added: “It would be dif- 


JESSUP 95 

ferent I suppose, if I belonged to the Howard Jessups 
of Buffalo.” 

“That isn’t a very fair thing to say,” he objected. 

“Is it a fair thing to throw up to me?” demanded 
Jessup, withdrawing her hands from his grasp. “Is 
it fair to keep harping on it? How do you suppose 
it makes me feel? I am quizzed and questioned as if 
I were an upstart. I am made to feel that my people 
were outcasts. Well, I want you to know that they 
weren’t. My father was one of the most successful 
men in St. Louis. And so was his father before him. 
I tell you I won’t be patronized. I won’t be looked at 
askance. I won’t be made to feel cheap. I won’t have 
it. I won’t stand it!” 

Banning looked at her in astonished silence. “Look 
here, Diana. You’re sensitive. You’re supersensitive. 
But I love you for it. Listen to me. I love you for it. 
I love you for everything you are and for everything 
you do. I adore that spirit of yours.” 

“Don’t!” interrupted Jessup. “Don’t talk to me 
any more. I wish you’d go!” 

“Leave you while you’re in this frame of mind ? No, 
I couldn’t think of it. I should never be able to forgive 
myself. I’m going to stay right here. You’re coming 
to dinner with me. But before we go, you’ve got to 
understand something that I should have made clear 
to you long ago. You’ve got to understand that I 
love you. I should have told you before, but I thought 
you knew. There was a kind of charm about knowing 
it but not talking about it.” 

Jessup listened passively to Banning’s rapid sen- 


96 JESSUP 

tences. A look of patient skepticism smoldered in 
her eyes. A faint, hurt, questioning smile appeared 
on her lips. 

“There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do to make you 
happy,’’ continued the rush of Banning’s words. “I 
don’t know whether you care for me or not, but if you 
don’t. I’m going to make you care. You’ve got to let 
me love you. I’ve been drawn to you by a force that 
I haven’t been able to resist. It’s unlike anything that 
has ever happened to me. We’re peculiarly alike; 
that’s what it is. I can understand your sensitiveness. 
I’ve had the same thing myself to contend with all my 
life. I understand everything about you. I tell you 
we were meant for each other. We were born for each 
other. We’re so much alike that nothing on earth can 
keep us apart. Why, we even look alike!” 

Banning stopped abruptly. He was looking into a 
face from which the color was gone. He saw a look 
of horror in Jessup’s eyes. 

“Diana I” demanded Banning, alarmed. “Why do 
you look at me like that?” 

But Jessup did not answer. Her eyes remained fixed, 
as if their stare had its source in a cavern of infinite 
gloom and suspicion. In these depths, Jessup felt 
close to maddening ancestral secrets which remained 
shut off from her by impenetrable fogs. 

“Diana, what is it? Why do you look at me like 
that?” she could hear him ask. 

Jessup continued to stare. The look of strangeness 
in her eyes deepened into the futile and inarticulate 
melancholy of a lifetime. 


JESSUP 97 

“I want to be alone,” she finally said with an effort. 
“Did you hear me, Diana?” he insisted. “I love 
you! I love you!” 

“Yes, I hear you. But don’t tell me any more just 
now,” she pleaded. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Nightfall was closing in on a grey, slushy, 
February day. The doors of office-buildings, like 
enormous mouths, were exhaling their evening crowds 
of devitalized people who were making a tired rush for 
New York’s multitude, of conveyances. Sixth Avenue 
was bending to its nightly task like a Brobdingnagian 
human hod-carrier. The crash of its elevateds, the 
grind of motor traffic, and the unearthly rumble of 
subways mingled together in a harsh anthem of home¬ 
going. The yellow glow of the shop-windows was 
muffled in a wintry mist that hunched up the shoulders 
of the pedestrians and drew their chins down into 
overcoat collars and neckpieces. 

Among the pedestrians who were hurrying along 
Fourteenth Street, there was one who lacked the 
practiced gait of those who rush every evening over 
the same streets and sidewalks toward the same subway 
or elevated station. Her long black cape inclosed 
slender shoulders, and her narrow shoes were snugly 
incased in overshoes. There was a wistfulness about 
the poise of her shoulders, and a lightness and swing in 
her stride. 

It was the first time that Jessup had explored this 
portion of the city. It was remote, not in miles, but in 
character and spirit, from the Sixth Avenue of the 

98 


JESSUP 99 

Rialto which she knew so well. The home-going 
crowds interested her, but the lighted windows, greyed 
by the breath of the Februaryimist, interested her more. 
Of late she had trudged for hours each day through 
strange streets, searching innumerable windows with 
hungry and reflective eyes. To-night she was tired and 
hesitant, filled with a mysterious melancholy and an 
infinite solitude. But in the midst of this solitude a 
taper glowed. Its beams lit her anxious face with a 
look of resolution, and kept a faint smile playing 
occasionally about her lips. 

She was on an extraordinary mission. She was in 
search of an ancestor. 

Jessup was grateful for the fog. It met and mingled 
with the fog that pervaded her own inner world. It 
seemed to her that brightness and sunshine would 
have made her scream. She recalled having read 
somewhere that more suicides occurred on sunny days 
than on cloudy days; and she could readily understand 
the morbid compulsion that made a world flooded with 
sun an Intolerable irony. This evening’s wet and pene¬ 
trating mists were a satisfying objective symbol of the 
inner mists that dampened and darkened her spirits. 
She inhaled the thick air deeply, and derived a sensuous 
pleasure from its chilling contact with her lungs. 

The dusk of this mist-muffled day seemed to her to 
be a fitting hour In which to be tramping the streets 
in search of an ancestor. Too vigorously imaginative 
to endure the blankness of the paternal wall that 
Inscrutably shut off the view behind her, she»had spent 
countless hours In piecing together a conception of 


100 


JESSUP 

what her father and his people must have been. Little 
by little, the images had grown from vagueness into 
more tangible outlines and depths and colorings. The 
picturing of these elements to herself had gradually 
drawn her into the quest that was now dragging her to 
the repositories of old pictures. 

She had rummaged through many ancient files of 
photographs. On one pretext or another, she had 
examined hundreds of cabinet photographs and 
daguerreotypes, inspecting them eagerly, searching dis¬ 
appointing and illusory features for something of the 
traits and lineaments that had established themselves 
in her mind. 

Crossing the street, she soon discovered the estab¬ 
lishment she was looking for. Its dusty atmosphere 
brooded over a litter of prints and photographs. The 
walls were hung with framed water-colors and enlarge¬ 
ments of photographs. In the rear of the place, beneath 
the gray canopy of a backyard skylight, was the camera 
room. The proprietor peered genially at Jessup 
through thick lenses. With stiffened fingers he placed 
a book-mark in the German novel he was reading, rose 
politely, and said: 

“Good evening. Miss. What can I show you?” 

“Perhaps I’m too late,” replied Jessup. “It’s nearly 
six. It must be near your closing time. Perhaps I’d 
better run in another time.” 

“I’m open until eight. Miss,” he answered in a 
Bavarian accent. “What can I show you? Some nice 
imported prints? Some examples of my photographs?” 
He looked intently at her. “I’d like to make some 


JESSUP lioi 

pictures of you,” he said with interest. “I’m sure I 
could please you.” 

“Nothing of myself. I’m just looking for old photo¬ 
graphs.” 

“Old photographs? That is not difficult here. 
Thousands of people have sat for me.” He reached 
stiffly for an enormous drawer and pulled it open. 
“You see I am well supplied. Mark Twain was one 
of my customers. I have made I don’t know how many 
pictures of Carl Schurz. There is one of the best of 
them.” He indicated a picture on the wall. “President 
Cleveland once posed for me.” The last was spoken 
with a sigh; Presidents no longer came to him to be 
photographed. 

Jessup was running rapidly through handfuls of 
photographs. 

“Can you see? Let me give you a little more light,” 
said the Bavarian. 

“This is ample, thank you.” 

Her search, as usual, was engrossing buf'depressing. 
The blank, unarresting faces that passed in review 
before her filled her with an overwhelming sense of the 
futility of these lives. The procession was one of 
pinched and embittered faces; of bulky faces totally 
void of any glow of the spirit; of anemic wall-eyed 
children; of awkward brides and grooms embarking 
blindly on the hazards of their mating; of storekeepers 
in deadly Sabbath clothes; of browbeaten wives seated 
in the center of hopeless family groups. 

“My, but you’ve taken a lot of pictures in your 


102 JESSUP 

time,” observed Jessup, marveling at the endless mass 
of prints. 

“Yes, Pve got a good many pictures in my morgue,” 
said the Bavarian with pride. 

“In your morgue?” repeated Jessup. “It seems to 
me that this is about the only claim to immortality that 
most of these people have.” 

“That’s true too,” chuckled the photographer. 
“They come and go.” 

Jessup was looking intently at a photograph of a 
youthful-looking woman. There was a melancholy 
beauty about it, a delicate and sheltered structure about 
the face. There was poise and graciousness, a gentle¬ 
ness in this face that made it seem out of place among 
these meaningless pictures. 

“What an interesting picture!” exclaimed Jessup. 
“Who sat for this? Do you remember?” 

He examined it carefully, then shook his head. “So 
many people have sat for me. They come and go. 
She’s fine-looking, ain’t she?” 

“Very distinguished-looking. Would you remem¬ 
ber, do you suppose, if she had been prominent?” 

“Sure I would. Wait! I do remember something 
about her. She came in here one day, sat for a picture, 
paid her deposit, and never came back again. That 
happens oftener than you would think. No, she never 
came back again.” 

“How long ago was that?” asked Jessup with 
interest. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Twenty-five years ago anyway. 
That’s an old picture.” 


103 


JESSUP 

‘‘Will you sell It to me?” 

**Gewiss! Why not?” 

“How much do you ask for it?” 

“Oh, twenty-five cents.” 

Jessup bought it. 

She carried It away with an exultance. It satisfied 
a craving that had been consuming her. It provided 
her with a gracious and consoling Image to commune 
with. 

The next day she ordered a frame for it, and featured 
It prominently in her apartment. 

Another time Jessup made a still more Important 
discovery. This occurred in a Madison Avenue art 
shop. She found a portrait, done In oil, of a venerable- 
looking gentleman of the period of about 1850. The 
dealer had dug It laboriously out of a pile of doubtful 
canvases and had rubbed off an accumulation of dust. 

“Perhaps you were looking for something on this 
order?” he asked, standing back and surveying it. 

“Yes, I like It,” answered Jessup, studying the 
portrait attentively. 

“I didn’t know I had It,” said the dealer, continuing 
to clean the canvas. “Goodness knows what else Eve 
got stowed away back In there. There’s some fine 
draughtsmanship here. A nice feeling for color. Let 
me see If It’s signed. No, there doesn’t seem to be any 
signature. Well, that’s too bad.” 

While the dealer chattered on, Jessup stood gazing 
into the genial eyes of the painted figure. She found a 
kindliness there. The wide, mature mouth seemed on 
the {)oInt of smiling. There was an informality about 


104 ' JESSUP 

the ruffled hair, and the neckwear was reminiscent of 
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. 

“An interesting old fellow, isn’t he?” remarked the 
dealer. 

“Yes, very. What will you take for it?” asked 
Jessup with sudden decision. 

The dealer rubbed his chin speculatively. “Well, 
suppose we say fifty dollars.” 

Enticed by a sudden bargaining impulse, Jessup 
offered him thirty. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll split the difference,” 
said the dealer, who would have been glad to turn the 
canvas into ready money at almost any figure. 

“All right. When can you deliver it?” 

“To-day.” 

Jessup’s motive in purchasing these pictures had 
been primarily to gratify her own craving for ancestral 
symbols with which to fill the void of uncertainty that 
oppressed and distracted her. She had never seen a 
picture of her mother, since apparently the Helmans, 
moved by parochial wrath, had destroyed every like¬ 
ness of their wayward daughter that they possessed. 
Her curiosity had largely become pointed in the direc¬ 
tion of her father’s family so that she now whimsically 
designated the newly-acquired portrait as Amos Jessup, 
her great-grandfather. The photograph, she decided, 
would be a picture of her mother. 

Free from any intent, at this time, to use them to 
deceive Ivan Banning, Jessup’s act had originated solely 
in the desire to fill an emptiness that tormented her. 


JESSUP io'5 

Elaving settled upon the notion that she wished that 
she had sprung from such forebears as these, she 
presently began thinking of them as her forebears. 

This fantastic idea she found entertaining. It was 
irrational but amusing, absurd but indubitably com¬ 
forting. It gave her, for the first time in her life, a 
sense of tradition. Her daring, free-handed invention 
gradually was giving way to a romantic sense of reality, 
which she did not resist. It was not uncommon, she 
reflected, to adopt a child and to regard it as one’s 
own; therefore why not adopt ancestors? 

In the serenity of mind that followed, Jessup viewed 
more calmly her recent scene with Ivan Banning. She 
was no longer troubled by her shocking surmises, which 
now seemed morbid and absurd. His fervent remark 
that they looked alike no longer pressed in upon her 
with its former sinister significance. 

Banning had not seen her for a fortnight. Desolated 
over the distress he had unmeaningly caused her, he 
had written daily while he was in Boston. His letters 
were full of tenderness. Receiving no reply, he had 
finally called her on long distance and had been vastly 
relieved to hear her say that she was feeling better 
and hoped to see him on his return. 

Arriving in New York, he went directly to the 
theater, saw part of the last act, and met Jessup at the 
close of the performance. 

“I finished at four this afternoon,” he explained, 
“wired you at once that I was coming, caught the five 
o’clock train, and here I am. I never saw you looking 
better. These are the longest two weeks I’ve ever lived. 


io6 


X 


JESSUP 

Could hardly wait to get back to you. Now that Pm 
here, I feel like singing and dancing. I don’t know 
where we can sing, but I know where we can dance. 
What do you say? You’re not too tired?” he inquired 
anxiously. 

“Not for a dance or two,” said Jessup with enthusi¬ 
asm. 

An hour later, they stood at the door of Jessup’s 
house. Their faces were flushed with dancing. Flakes 
of snow had lodged on Jessup’s furs, and a few sparkled 
on her face. Banning was looking at her with sensual 
eyes. He was filled with a sudden reckless desire. 

“Good night,” she said. 

“You’re beautiful!” he exclaimed, taking both her 
hands. 

“Yes?” she laughed. 

“I can’t let you go. Don’t send me away.” 

“It’s late. I’m afraid I’ll have to say good night,” 
said Jessup, doubting her own strength to resist. 

“Let me go up with you just for a moment,” begged 
Banning. 

“Not to-night,” she protested. 

“I’ve got to talk to you. Let me go up with you for 
just a few minutes. Please. I won’t stay long. Say 
you will let me.” 

“It’s so very late,” said Jessup in a low voice. 

“Please! I’ve got to talk to you, Diana,” insisted 
Banning. 

Jessup smiled. “What do you Have to talk about 


• JESSUP ,107; 

at this hour of the night, I should like to knowl” she 
asked. 

“About us.” 

“It will keep.” 

“What are you doing?” he demanded abruptly. 
“Just playing with me?” 

“Is it necessary to be so tragic?” asked Jessup, 
regarding him steadfastly. 

“I care for you too much to be taken lightly.” He 
drew closer. “I can’t sleep. I can’t work, for thinking 
about you. I walk the floor at night. It’s all I can 
do to keep from grabbing the telephone and calling 
you up in the middle of the night, just to hear your 
voice. If I’m tragic about it, I can’t help it. I’ve 
walked up and down like a kid in front of this house 
at three and four o’clock in the morning just to be 
near you. I’ve been half crazed with jealousy.” 

“With jealousy?” she echoed. 

“Yes, with jealousy.” 

“Of whom?” 

“How do I know? Of the men who see you in the 
theater. Of your managers. God only knows how 
many men are crazy about you.” 

Jessup smiled quizzically. 

“I knew it,” said Banning bitterly. “It drives me 
almost mad to have you on the stage, Diana, with every 
Tom, Dick and Harry, able to stare at you by the hour. 
It makes public property of you almost. I can’t think 
of it. It makes me want to drag you away somewhere 
out of everybody else’s sight.” 


io8 JESSUP 

“Why, you savage !” retorted Jessup, caught by his 
mood. 

“There have been times when I was fool enough to 
think that you cared for me,” continued Banning 
miserably. “Then again I’ve been convinced that I 
am only one of many. It’s only natural that men should 
fall in love with you. I don’t see how they can help it. 
If you’re irresistible to me, you must be irresistible to 
others.” 

“There’ve been no indications that I’m so irresistible 
to you,” she challenged. 

Banning’s hands closed tightly over her arms at the 
elbows. He continued with intensity; “No one else 
can care for you as much as I do. I’m going to prove 
it to you. I’ll teach you what it really means to be 
loved.” 

The passionate tension of Banning’s outburst roused 
her. Her blood quickened, as if the fire of his being 
was actually flowing into hers from the hands that 
were grasping her arms. An electric warmth spread 
through her. An exquisite weakness suffused her, 
leaving her silent. 

“You’re shivering. You’re cold. We mustn’t stand 
here,” Banning was saying. 

Jessup’s eyelids drooped heavily. Her lips were 
slightly parted. She was engulfed in a gorgeous dream 
that surrounded her like huge tropical blossoms and 
enveloped her in enormous petals and languorous 
perfumes. 

Completely lost to her objective surroundings, she 
heard nothing of what Banning was saying. Then she 


JESSUP 


109 

felt herself slowly returning. His pleading again 
became audible. 

“Come, you’re cold,” she could hear him urge. “You 
can’t stand here. Let me take you up.” 

An impulse to obey swayed her. She started for the 
apartment, then stopped abruptly. 

“Please, not to-night,” she begged almost inaudibly. 

The moment of yielding had almost overwhelmed 
her but was now passing. There was a tinge of wistful 
triumph in her smile. She said: “Run along now.” 

“First say that you care for me,” Banning insisted. 

In answer she surrendered herself indulgently to his 
intense kisses, but displayed neither resistance nor 
response. 


CHAPTER IX 


A CONFLICT of emotions attended Jessup to her apart¬ 
ment after Banning had gone. Before switching on her 
lights, she crossed to the window, as though half- 
expecting him still to be lingering about. The memory 
of imperious perfumes and sensuous blossoms pressed 
insistently into her consciousness, and filled her with 
arresting reveries, and a sense of emotional loneliness. 
She reflected that she had been a fool to send Banning 
away; that he was a bigger fool for going. She kept 
repeating that she had a right to him. As if to recall 
him, she started again for the window and peered out 
into the deserted street, gray with a thin layer of snow. 
She questioned the rush of inhibitions that had made 
her ward him off. 

She was preparing absently for bed. Switching off 
the lights, she raised the shades, and again directed a 
glance at the wintry street, but Banning was nowhere 
in sight. Throwing back the taffeta spread, she slipped 
into bed. Lying relaxed, she realized that the inflexible^ 
will with which she had always remonstrated with men 
and resisted their advances, seemed to be lapsing into 
languid inaction. She stretched and yawned restlessly. 
After all, she mused, what had this guardedness and 
restraint profited her? A few years more, and she 
would be old. She was jealously appraising her youth, 


no 


» 


JESSUP III 

whicli she had hitherto regarded as a matter of course. 
Suddenly her youth seemed very precious and very 
fleeting. It seemed to be flowing away like an unused, 
neglected river. Mysterious protests swept out of the 
unconscious into the front of her mind. Urgent 
voices whispered to her. There was a seductive 
eloquence in their whispering. 

The intuitive reactions that had invariably quelled 
her sexual impulses, now seemed to represent hostile, 
menacing forces bent upon robbing her. She perceived 
that she was allowing herself to be cheated out of 
something that was due her. What had her persistent 
guardedness accomplished, save only this burden of 
intolerable solitude? To-night this solitude seemed 
unnatural and obnoxious, worse than the evils it had 
sought to replace. Reckless impulses sprang to life and 
diffused a radiance through her brain and body. 

Jessup’s determination never to marry was deeply 
rooted in the somber soil of her own origin, and had 
been steadfastly nurtured by the conviction that no act 
of hers must ever be responsible for inflicting her own 
ancestral woes upon still another human being. The 
horror of ever being held accountable for a child had 
made her shrink involuntarily from permitting herself 
to yield to special interest in any one man. Banning’s 
friendship and its sentimental claims upon her were 
gradually cutting her loose from her resolution never 
to marry. She felt nervously adrift. 

Confused longings were swinging through her in a 
glowing skein: little by little she yielded to fantasies 
that were new to her imagination and subtly drugging 


Iii JESSUP 

to her will: nuances of desire were creeping through 
her with irresistible rhythm. From invisible vials rose 
a sensuous fragrance, filling the darkness like tinted 
smoke, and pervading her limp body. The air of the 
room seemed filled with enormous unseen violets, and 
poppies, and orchids, which distilled troubling dreams 
that invaded her cool tissues and made her burn like a 
crater. 

Imperious longings tormented her. 

When Jessup awoke, one by one the events, impres¬ 
sions, and reveries of the previous night rehearsed 
themselves. Now, by day, with a cool and unemotional 
mind, she proceeded to weigh her deliberate emotional 
longing, and found that she sanctioned it. She did not 
question her right to Ivan Banning. 

While she lay in bed, engaged in these meditations, 
there was a rap at the door, and a negro maid entered 
with Jessup’s breakfast tray. It was Jessup’s custom 
to breakfast in bed, and she had been able to engage 
part of the time of her landlady’s maid for this service. 

“Mah goodness. Miss Jessup, you-all sho’ do look 
bright and peart this mo’nin’,” said the negress 
genially, as she arranged the breakfast dishes on Jes¬ 
sup’s bed-tray. 

“Thank you, Jane. That coffee smells good.” 

“Yes, ma’am. You certainly looks rested and 
refreshed. Say, Miss Jessup, why you don’t employ 
me for all mah time? I’m tellin’ you I’d jest love to 
be workin’ for you all de time, helpin’ you dress, an’ 
gettin’ your dinners an’ all.” 


JESSUP 113 

“That’s a luxury I couldn’t afford,” laughed Jessup, 
snuggling cozily among the pillows. “Besides, you’d 
have me spoiled in less than no time.” 

“An’ why shouldn’t you be spoiled. Miss Jessup? 
I’m sure I don’t know who’d have a better right. I 
declar’, I can’t see for the life o’ me why some man 
ain’t come along an’ stole you long ago.” 

“You’re just an old flatterer,” replied Jessup lightly. 

“Not much, I ain’t,” protested the black admiringly. 
“I never did see such skin and such color in all my life. 
An’ as fo’ disposition, well, they don’t make ’em no 
better, that’s all. Only there is times when you seem 
so all-fired lonely-like. An’ when you feels that way, 
that’s the time some man is goin’ to steal you right 
out from under mah nose. Miss Jessup.” 

“Would you miss me ?” asked Jessup good-naturedly. 

“Miss you? Why you don’t ask me somp’n hahd? 
Why, I’d up and trail right along after you. You 
couldn’t shake me no matter how hahd you tried. 
Why, chip, I’ve taken a God-awful love an’ likin’ for 
you.” 

In the midst of Jessup’s breakfast, the telephone 
rang. With a feeling of excited suspense, she answered. 
It was Ivan. His voice was solicitous. 

“What kind of a mood am I responsible for this 
morning?” he inquired. 

“It’s too early in the day for moods. I’m still 
half asleep,” replied Jessup. 

“Half asleep?” he repeated. “I was in hopes that 
I had waked you up.” 

“You did,” Jessup replied. 


II4 JESSUP 

“Last night or this morning?” he questioned. 

“Perhaps both times,” laughed Jessup nervously. 

“Tell me about it at dinner to-night.” 

“But wait. Just a minute. Let me see,” added 
Jessup. “Would you just as soon make it for supper 
after the theater instead?” 

“Any time you say,” replied Banning. 

“I think supper would be better,” said Jessup with 
a calmness she did not feel. 

“Pll call for you as usual,” returned Banning. “Shall 
we go to some lively place like the Plantation?” 

“We can come here,” said Jessup quietly. 

“To your apartment?” Banning’s reply was not free 
from surprise. 

“Yes. Would you like to?” 

“Of course.” 

“All right, then. Pll see you to-night.” 

Jessup replaced the receiver exultantly. She realized 
that she had committed herself to a course of action 
that a few days ago had not occurred to her. She 
knew that Banning could not have failed to grasp the 
entire meaning of her suggestion. The coral-colored 
tint of her face deepened. She had committed herself 
and did not regret it. 

It was near midnight when Jessup unlocked the door 
and admitted Ivan and herself into the house. 

An awkward silence had risen between them several 
times on the way from the theater. On Jessup’s part, 
the silence reflected more of a rational resignation than 
an emotional eagerness to follow out the deliberate 


JESSUP ,115^ 

plans she had laid. There were moments when she 
seemed to be viewing the whole proceeding objectively 
from a comfortable distance; and yet there were 
moments when she had to exert her will to repress an 
hysterical impulse to escape. 

On Ivan Banning’s part, these recurrent silences 
reflected the inner tension of holding himself in strict 
reserve under conditions that glowed profoundly with 
temptation. For he had quickly arrived at a convincing 
interpretation of Jessup’s suggestion that they go to 
her apartment at this hour; he saw in it only an inten¬ 
tion to test his inherent decency and his loyalty to her. 

“Hungry?” she asked, busily occupying herself 
with her wraps. 

“A little,” was his rather strained reply. 

“You seem indifferent,” said Jessup. 

“About food, yes,” he answered. “You see I am 
trying hard to suppress my various animal inclinations.” 

“You aren’t always quite so tamed. I never did 
forget that wild outburst of yours about architects,” 
said Jessup. 

“The anonymity of architects no longer makes me 
savage,” rejoined Banning. “I have since learned that 
there are things in life that are much more important 
than floor-space and building materials.” 

Aware of the hint of emotion in his voice, Jessup 
inquired calmly: 

“Tell me, what are you building these days?” 

“Mainly air castles.” 

“Indeed. That’s interesting. What are they like? 
Solid Tudor affairs with massive old hearthstones and 


ii 6 JESSUP 

beamed ceilings? With elusive entrances and exits, 
mysterious trellises, and dusky lighting?” 

Without waiting for a reply^ Jessup began rapid 
preparations for supper. 

Banning stood watching her moodily. Doubts as to 
what her relations might be with other men began 
troubling him. This ushered in a distracting suspicion. 
If she had not been accustomed to have men in her 
apartment at this late hour, would she have gone to 
the extent of inviting him to-night even for the purpose 
of testing him? It hardly seemed possible. Was it a 
commonplace occurrence for men to be here at this 
hour? The thought gritted through his brain. It left 
him depressed and saturnine. 

“Hello,” he said, discovering the portrait on Jessup’s 
wall. He crossed to it with interest. “Something 
new?” he inquired. 

“No, something old,” answered Jessup briefly, with¬ 
out pausing in her work. 

“A relative, of course,” he said with interest. 

“My great-grandfather,” replied Jessup, stirring 
rapidly. “Don’t you think we look alike ?” 

“Very much,” returned Banning, studying the por¬ 
trait closely. “Yes, there’s quite a marked resemblance. 
You have his forehead and temples. When did you 
hang it? Surely you didn’t have it the last time I was 
here ?” 

“No, it arrived the other day.” 

“By Jove, now I’m actually beginning to know you.” 
Banning continued to study the portrait. 


I 


JESSUP 117 

“Oh, indeed,” said Jessup dryly. “Have I seemed 
so mysterious to you?” 

“I must admit there has been an air of elusiveness 
about you at times.” 

“Yes?” questioned Jessup. 

“I hardly know how to explain it,” answered Banning 
reflectively. “But, you know, sometimes you vaguely 
suggest a dozen different backgrounds, without being 
identified with any of them. You don’t seem to belong 
to the stage. This apartment doesn’t seem like you. 
Perhaps it’s the home element that’s lacking. I have 
naturally tried to think of you in terms of your people. 
That’s what makes this portrait so interesting. It adds 
perspective. It helps round out the picture. Who is 
this on the table? Your mother?” Banning studied 
the photograph. 

“How did you guess?” asked Jessup. 

“This is curiously as I pictured your mother to be.” 

“Then you aren’t disappointed?” 

“Just the opposite. Come here. Let me see how 
closely you resemble each other.” 

“Not now. I’m busy. Do I have to be the duplicate 
of an interesting picture in order to be interesting 
myself?” 

There was a note of challenge in Jessup’s question. 
“When I can drag you away from the subject of 
ancestors,” she added crisply, “I wish you’d pull this 
cork. I’ve just discovered a bottle of sauterne.” 

“I never refused an invitation like that,” replied 
Banning. “Here’s a toast to the ancestor,” he said 
later, turning to the portrait. 


ii8 


JESSUP 

“To the ancestor,” repeated Jessup, looking into 
the comprehending eyes that peered down at her from 
the wall, eyes that could take a joke and keep a secret. 

Jessup had no appetite. Now and again her glance 
would sweep to the photograph on the table, chastely 
framed in silver, which she had herself almost grown 
to accept as the likeness of her mother. She had never 
seen a picture of her mother, although she had surrepti¬ 
tiously rummaged about in the Helmans’ attic and 
cellar and through bureau drawers in a vain search. 

Her thoughts kept revolving about the vague and 
baffling notion of what her mother had actually been 
like. The features remained lost in a cloud of 
uncertainty, but in the developing-bath of Jessup’s 
imagination, the enigmatic negative began little by 
little to disclose some idea of her mother’s tempera¬ 
ment. It was a hungry, inarticulate temperament. A 
dumb straining to express itself. A bewildering fire 
that flamed into recklessness and defiance. A passion¬ 
ate eloquence of the flesh. 

For the first time in her life, Jessup sensed the 
wayward course that had heretofore always mystified 
and horrified her. Perhaps in that bitter exercise of 
the flesh, that dumb and pitiful spirit had found an 
outlet for something that was being stifled by the 
narrowness of the family and the village. 

In this flash of intuition, it was with difficulty that 
Jessup forced herself to conceal the depth of her 
emotions from Banning. 

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” he 


JESSUP 119 

inquired, breaking the silence. “You seemed a thousand 
miles away.” 

“I was.” 

“Then I wasn’t in your thoughts. But I want to be, 
Diana. I can’t be separated from you much longer. 
I’ve got to have you with me all the time.” 

Banning rose and sat on the arm of her chair. “I 
didn t mean to talk to you like this to-night,” he con¬ 
tinued earnestly. “I didn’t mean to take advantage of 
your letting me come. But I’m helpless when I’m near 
you. You do care for me, don’t you?” 

As Jessup listened, she was divided between the 
impulse to believe and to doubt. 

“I can hardly believe you mean all that,” she said at 
length, looking at him with quizzical curiosity. 

“How can you say that?” he demanded. “Of course 
I mean it.” 

“Perhaps it’s the hour that makes you a bit senti¬ 
mental,” interrupted Jessup. 

He darted an answering look at her. “You’re right. 
I’m talking too much. What the devil are a lot of 
words? This is no time to talk to you.” 

Banning seized her hungrily. The eagerness of his 
kisses made it useless for her to resist, and in her diz¬ 
zied yielding she closed her eyes as if to shut out the 
watchful impulses of evasion and self-protection. 
Through her dimmed consciousness ran jets of fire 
that touched her nerves with a peculiar incandescence. 
A fever glowed in her veins and filled her body with a 
singular incense. Back of her silent lips hovered new 
words and phrases, the groping grammar and syntax 


120 


JESSHB 

of an emotion that before this Had been only fugitive 
and inarticulate. But she did not utter any of the 
words that were stringing themselves with nervous 
energy across the cloudy horizon of her mind. The 
limpness of her body gave no hint of the cruelties she 
could gladly have endured. 

Banning released her abruptly, lit a cigarette, and 
strode to the window. 

“I don’t know what you think of me,” he said at 
length. “I’ve done exactly the sort of thing that I 
promised myself solemnly not to do. I deserve to be 
ordered out.” 

She regarded him curiously. “That’s amusing,” she 
answered soberly. 

Banning’s glance betrayed astonishment. “In what 
way amusing?” he asked uncomfortably. 

“The way you apologize,” she said ironically. 

“I’ve been awkward. I know. I’m sorry. I’ve of¬ 
fended you. It was beastly of me. It wasn’t me. I 
lost my head,” stated Banning in confusion. 

Jessup’s answering smile was vaguely hurt, but Ban¬ 
ning missed its meaning. 

“What do you think lam? A child ?” she demanded 
suddenly, “that you overwhelm me with affection one 
minute and punish me the next?” 

“My apology wasn’t meant as punishment. But you 
mean too much to me. I can’t treat you just as an ob¬ 
ject to vent my passion.” 

“Why not? After all, isn’t that what all women 
are?” asked Jessup with a flash of reminiscent bitter¬ 
ness. 


JESSUP ;i2i 

“No. You must understand that you have become 
very sacred to me. Naturally I wouldn’t be human if 
I weren’t hungry for you. You’re like a marvelous, 
brimming goblet set before a man parched with thirst. 
It’s all I can do to keep my hands off of you. Just 
being in the same room with you sets me on fire.” 

Banning’s earnestness left Jessup without an answer. 

“But can’t you see I’m afraid,” he continued. “I’d 
never forgive myself. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. I 
don’t know. But I care too much for you. It isn’t 
myself that I’m thinking of. It’s you. Don’t you see 
that I want to protect you?” 

“Protect me?” she questioned. “What’s your idea 
of protection? To find out if I respond, and then 
blandly dismiss me as too sacred? Don’t you suppose 
I feel like a fool?” 

“Why should you? Can’t I make it clear to you,” 
he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking se- 
yerely into her eyes, “that I’m afraid—afraid of my¬ 
self at this time? Now I’m going to run along. At 
another time we’ll talk about It.” 

“But now is the time,” Insisted Jessup. “You asked 
me If I cared. Haven’t I shown you that I do? 
Haven’t I shown you that Pm lonely for you now?” 

“Do you trust me to that extent, or is this just a 
test?” he asked, drawing her to him. “Look here,” 
he added brusquely. “It’s time we understood each 
other. Why isn’t marriage the natural, the logical, 
the Inevitable thing for us to talk about? It is. 
Isn’t It?” 

“Why?” Jessup asked. “Because you lost your 


122 


JESSUP 

head, as you call it, and think you have to make amends 
with talk about getting married? Is that why?” 

“No, that isn’t why,” declared Banning earnestly. 

“You mean that you care for me that way? As 
much as that?” 

“Of course I do. I thought you knew it.” 

“How was I to know it?” asked Jessup. 

“I thought I showed it in a hundred different ways. 
Surely you must have seen that I wasn’t taking our 
relations lightly.” 

“I didn’t know.” 

“From now on, please don’t doubt me any more,” 
said Banning soberly. 

Jessup did not answer. She was wishing that Ivan 
had said these things without having been drawn on 
deliberately by herself. By degrees a feeling of guilt 
came over her; she felt that she had had no right to 
involve him in the declarations he had just made; she 
had concealed too much from him. 

Her sense of elation, of triumph, was checked by the 
feeling that she had tricked him. 

“Don’t doubt me any more, Diana.” 

“Don’t talk about it now. Another time,” said Jes¬ 
sup with an effort. 

“All right. You’re tired. Another time,” he an¬ 
swered. 

The genuineness of Ivan’s devotion left Her Helpless 
before her own accusing thoughts. 


CHAPTER X 


Jessup’s discovery of the real quality of Banning’s 
devotion left her pondering. It was difficult to adjust 
herself to this new conception of him. She was dis¬ 
turbed and bewildered. Never having permitted the 
idea of marriage to figure prominently in either her 
plans or her fancies, his definite assertion that he was 
not only ready but impatient to make her his wife, 
created a problem that was new to her and distressing. 

She cared deeply for him. He was a type of man, 
and symbolized the kind of tradition, of which she had 
stood in awe. She was aware that if she had cared 
for him less, she might not now be hesitating about her 
answer. But the sense of guilt that had overwhelmed 
her when he spoke of marriage had steadily deepened 
since his departure. Her various inferences and the 
mass of false pretenses with which she had carefully 
surrounded herself, rose accusingly. She realized that 
if she married him, those lies would loom between them 
with dark and persistent menace. She knew that he 
thought of her in terms of the family background she 
had invented, and that his affection could not con¬ 
ceivably survive his knowledge of the actual facts. 

Until she could decide, she shrank from seeing him 
again, and sternly ignored the insistent ringing of the 
telephone the next morning. But the knowledge that 

123 


124 JESSUP, 

it was Ivan filled her with a quiet elation, as if victory 
had touched her spirit. The sense of inferiority that 
had plagued her, was receding. She felt less like an 
outcast. Gentler humors began visiting her; New 
York spoke to her in more pleasing accents; and the 
whole beat of life seemed to be changing into a more 
bearable cadence. 

She began really enjoying her work at the theater; 
her companions irritated her less; and the audiences 
no longer seemed to be hostile forces that had to be 
conquered. In her drawing, the tension with which 
she had been working gave way to more of an ease 
and relaxation. She felt less inarticulate and her con¬ 
fused mental images were developing into clearer out¬ 
lines. 

“That’s an odd thing you’ve got there,” said one of 
the instructors, looking at a half-finished sketch. 
“What is it? A poster idea?” 

The figure on her drawing-board was that of a dark 
woman wrapped in a long varicolored cape. In her 
hand was a peacock fan and on one of her fingers a 
large ruby. 

“That’s a good figure,” added the instructor. 
“You’ve got a good imaginative quality in the costume. 
Ever try any costume-designing? Knowing the stage 
as you do, you might be able to do costumes.” 

Jessup’s ideas kept reverting to fabrics and garb, to 
the human figure as a frame for expressive draperies 
and colors. Selecting different temperaments, she 
would interpret them with her brushes in appropriate 
garments, and wrap them in mysterious folds. She 


JESSUP 125 

experimented with a score of varied types. From the 
imaginary dress of individual figures, she began ex¬ 
tending her efforts to groups of figures, which led her 
in turn to dramatic grouping, and to interesting at¬ 
tempts to reveal character and motive in the subtle 
sweep and lines of the garments. 

She grew critical of the costuming of the production 
in which she was appearing. There was something 
misleading about the gowns she wore. Inexpressive 
of her artistic intent, it became annoying and irritating. 
She attempted to design different conceptions of her 
own, but all of them proved inaccurate, and most of 
them overdrawn or grotesque. She was aiming at a 
certain tang, a strangeness, a comic spirit of mischief. 
But her results, instead of expressing what she was 
striving for, seemed to her only a confusion of inept 
and bizarre misrepresentation. 

The study of clothes as symbols of character and of 
moods began to engross her. She studied fabrics at 
dozens of different shops. With a glow of curiosity 
she hunted new colors, and the discovery of certain 
rare and satisfying shades repaid her amply for the 
time it had taken to find them. She studied the stream 
of women on the Avenue, judging the fitness of their 
clothes, and discovering many whom she would eagerly 
have used as subjects to recostume in keeping with 
their Individuality. 

She would gaze at women whose personalities con¬ 
tained an element of originality, or beauty, or mystery. 
When she perceived necks, arms and fingers loaded 
with jewelry, she felt like stripping them of their 


I2S 


JESSUP 

jewds and substituting a single unusual ornament She 
became sensitive to the hues of furs, the tints of com¬ 
plexions. Occasionally she would discover women who 
were neither beautiful nor young, yet so perfectly at¬ 
tired that they exerted a potent magnetism. 

Soon after Banning’s visit, the sight of the portrait 
suddenly filled Jessup with a rush of forebodings that 
made her seize the painting and thrust its face to the 
wall. Turning to the photograph on the table, she 
also found that disturbing. The sense of humor with 
which she had searched for these pictures no longer 
afforded her any comfort. 

But the morning brought happy changes in her 
mood. She awoke with the sun brightly flooding her 
bedroom and illuminating it with the warmth of a mer¬ 
curial vitality. 

“Parties, balls an’ festivals!” exclaimed the maid, 
arriving with the breakfast tray. 

“What’s the matter, Jane?” demanded Jessup. 

“Say, Miss Jessup, you must have had some wind 
blowin’ through heah last night. It’s a wonder it 
didn’t blow you clean out of yo’ bed an’ all over de 
place. Why, it blowed this great big picture clean 
around and banged its face right smack against de 
wall!” 

“Really,” answered Jessup. “Fix it, will you 
please?” 

“I will in a minute. Miss Jessup. I done brought 
you some waffles dis mo’nin’.” 

“Bring them in. I’m ravenous.” 


JESSUP 127 

“Ravenoys Is 'de way to be,” smiled the darky. 
“Yoah appetite ain’t been nothin’ like it ought to been 
heah lately. Why, you ain’t hardly been eatin’ enough 
to keep body and soul together. I’ve been so anxious 
an’ worried about you. Miss Jessup, that once or twice 
I’ve been tempted to callin’ in a doctah.” 

“Nonsense, I’m not sick. I don’t need any medi¬ 
cine,” scoffed Jessup. 

“Dat’s jest the conclusion I come to myself. What 
you need is jest the same an’ no more nor less than any 
woman needs. Yo’ needs a man to take care o’ you.” 

“Good heavens,” Jessup answered, “after all the 
good-for-nothing men you’ve been married to, I 
shouldn’t think you’d have the nerve to recommend a 
man even to your worst enemy.” 

Ivan Banning had reached an emotional impasse 
that only marriage could dissolve. He wondered what 
his mother would say, and concluded that she would 
raise strenuous objections. She had met Jessup only 
once, but that had been sufficient to disclose an intan¬ 
gible hostility. Ivan had for a time continued to hope 
that Jessup’s grievance had been more fancied than 
actual, but had been compelled to accept her conclu¬ 
sions as authentic, and now he wondered whether strat¬ 
egy, or concealment, or an open issue between his 
mother and himself might best serve his purpose. 

Knowing her willfulness, he dismissed as impracti¬ 
cable the notion of endeavoring to win her round to 
his views. The two remaining alternatives were either 
to tell her of his intentions and go ahead in open op- 


128 


IJ E S S U P 

position to her, or to proceed secretly and to let her 
find it out afterwards. While he was considering these 
alternatives, his mother brought matters abruptly to 
an issue. 

They were spending an evening together at home. 
Banning was absent-mindedly turning the pages of an 
architectural journal, and his mother was rapidly scan¬ 
ning the last chapter of a Galsworthy novel. 

“Galsworthy is so finished and modern,” she said 
complacently, as she closed the book. “He is such a 
relief after some of these impossible American novel¬ 
ists who have just made the discovery that there is such 
a thing as sex in the world and keep harping on it in¬ 
cessantly.” 

“Is that so?” replied Ivan. “I rarely get time to 
look at a book any more.” 

“Yes, you do seem to be extraordinarily occupied 
of late. Your interest seems to have turned to the 
theater, I believe.” 

“Oh, I haven’t seen so many plays,” yawned Ban¬ 
ning. 

“No, you seem entirely absorbed with one. Do you 
see much of that Miss Jessup?” 

“Now and then. Why do you ask?” he inquired, 
startled by her directness. 

“Because I hoped your infatuation would wear off. 
Don’t bother to deny it, Ivan. You haven’t been natu¬ 
ral for several months. I want you to be sensible, and 
get hold of yourself, and try to shake this infatuation 
off.” 

“You talk as if it were an evil influence.” 


J E S S U I> ia9 

“I’m not so sure that it isn’t.” 

“Why? Because Diana works for a living?” de¬ 
manded the son belligerently. “Don’t be antiquated!” 

“But you don’t know anything about her.” 

“I know all that I need to know,” said Ivan im¬ 
patiently. 

“What do you propose to do?” 

“Marry her, if she’ll have me.” 

“I don’t imagine she would offer any very serious 
objection.” 

“You don’t know her,” said Banning. “I don’t know 
whether she’ll have me or not. She says she won’t.” 

“Really? She seems to have more intelligence than 
I gave her credit for,” said Mrs. Banning, somewhat 
relieved. 

“You don’t know her. You saw her only once. ,You 
treated her with patronizing superiority, with a con¬ 
tempt so thinly veiled that a blind man could have 
seen it.” 

“Did she notice it?” 

“How could she help it?” 

“I was afraid it might have escaped Her,” replied 
his mother dryly. 

“So you set out deliberately to insult her, did you?” 
he demanded, struggling to control his temper. 

“If I insulted her, it was only to save you both from 
a very serious mistake.” 

Banning had often been brought face to face with a 
polite but Inflexible decision on the part of his mother, 
but never prior to this with so sharp a bayonet-point 
of opposition. Suddenly It seemed to him that all the 


I 


130 JESSUP 

pride and snobbery and bigotry of his parent had nar¬ 
rowed down into a blade that menaced Jessup. His 
eyes blazed. 

“The discussion is useless,” he was saying. “Fve 
made up my mind. I’m sorry to have to go against 
your wishes, but after all, the problem Is so personal 
that it lies entirely between Diana and myself.” 

“Not if you insist on marrying her,” was the quick 
reply. “In that case it becomes a family matter.” 
Mrs. Banning paused, and during the pause a more 
persuasive expression entered her eyes. “But you 
would make a very great mistake to marry her,” she 
added. 

“I don’t agree with you at all,” interrupted Banning 
with resentment. “You don’t know her. You’ll find 
out what an injustice you’re doing her when you get 
better acquainted.” 

“I don’t want to get better acquainted. I can under¬ 
stand, of course, why you would be more or less in¬ 
fatuated with her,” she said In a kindlier voice. “She’s 
a pretty little thing. She has elements of charm, and 
in her way she’s not inartistic. But she can’t possibly 
hold you any length of time, Ivan. Your feeling Is 
bound to burn Itself out. Fortunately, you don’t have 
to marry her.” 

The somber emphasis of his mother’s last sentence 
made Banning look at her sharply. “What?” he de¬ 
manded bitingly. 

“Do I have to be explicit?” she asked crisply. 

“I don’t follow you at all,” he said sullenly. 

“It’s not a pretty subject for a mother to have to 


JESSUP ri3i 

discuss with a son. But I could never forgive myself 
if I permitted any sentimental nonsense to blind me at 
such a time as this. We’re living in a practical world 
and in a practical age. I am merely suggesting the 
lesser of two evils. You have lost your head over a 
woman who is far beneath you socially. If I’ve got to 
be blunt, then I’ll be blunt. I beg of you not to make 
a fool of yourself, Ivan. Think of your future. Think 
of your family. Think of me. One thing is sure, you 
can’t afford to marry like this. But if you simply can’t 
control yourself, then go ahead and have your affair 
and forget it.” 

Mrs. Banning’s final sentences were delivered in 
harsh tones and rapid words, and directly she had fin¬ 
ished she rose and left the room. From force of habit 
Ivan rose politely, but it was a ghastly politeness and 
it was in silence that he watched her go. Already he 
was aware that, had his mother made similar sugges¬ 
tions concerning an infatuation for any other woman, 
he might have admired her for her modern, unsenti¬ 
mental views. But as applied to Jessup, he was com¬ 
pelled to regard the advice as an unpardonable profa¬ 
nation of a lofty emotion. Too amazed and hurt to 
be angry, he filled a pipe, lit it, and sank moodily into 
a chair. 

Smarting under his mother’s words, he could only 
think of her as utterly selfish. What did he care about 
social position? Jessup, he reflected, had proved her¬ 
self worthy of any sacrifice on his part. 

At midnight he was still dragging dejectedly at a' 
pipe that had grown harsh to the tongue and bitter to 


132 JESSUP 

the throat. His meditations had reduced themselves 
to the simple and direct purpose to marry Jessup as 
soon as he could. His egotism rallied round this one 
determination. He would show his mother that it was 
impossible to swerve him. 

It was the first time that Banning had formulated 
so impetuous and so determined a code of action. He 
had been content to drift with various currents. Social 
doors had opened to him; his mother’s income was 
enough to provide for both the present and the future, 
regardless of his own business ventures; and his part¬ 
nership in the firm of Murray, Cooper & Banning 
had come about without struggle or straining on his 
part. His membership in the firm had automatically 
lifted the latch to considerable business in circles that 
both the urbane Murray and the gruff Cooper had long 
coveted, and, under the skillful and experienced direc¬ 
tion of the two older partners, these new contracts were 
steadily being converted into excellent profits for them¬ 
selves and their younger colleague. 

There was nothing of the fighter about Banning. 
He had none of the accomplished business acumen of 
Daniel J. Murray, whose efficient management of the 
organization, combined with the charm with which he 
could cultivate a client and win his confidence, made 
his competitors respect him. And Banning had none 
of the raw, restless imaginative quality of B. F. Cooper, 
who could bring bankers and promoters together on 
building projects that no one else had ever thought 
of. Banning’s main contribution to the destinies 
of the firm was his wide acquaintance, not among 


JESSUP 133 

the wealthiest, to be sure, but among substantial peo¬ 
ple. He was well connected in the matter of clubs, 
both town and country, and was by temperament and 
inclination disposed to spend his time socially, rather 
than in laborious work or in close study. And Murray 
and Cooper were shrewd enough to know that he could 
valuably round out the professional qualifications of 
the firm in just this way. He had rarely been drawn 
into the firm’s real fighting in the incessant contest for 
business. His duties had been of a more tranquil char¬ 
acter. 

To-night’s issue between himself and his mother had 
roused a fighting temper in him, and Jessup gleamed 
before his mind’s eye as a prize to be fought for at any 
cost. This, added to the emotional pitch to which 
Jessup had lifted him, blotted out any questions con¬ 
cerning her that might have instinctively risen in his 
mind. It was the first time that he had been very much 
in love. His affairs had previously been light, selfish, 
entertaining, rather than imaginative or engrossing. 
If he had ever contemplated marriage at all, it had 
invariably been along the conventional lines of the es¬ 
tablished traditions of his family. 

His present serious emotion had wrested him from 
all these previous tendencies, and he was filled with a 
passionate defiance. 


CHAPTER XI 


Wholly unaware that Banning and his mother 
were at odds concerning her, Jessup was gradually be¬ 
coming accustomed to the idea of marriage. It seemed 
almost incredible to her that New York, which had 
received her with coldness and indifference, had actu¬ 
ally thawed out to this extent. The knowledge that the 
big, hard, sparkling, self-centered city had mysteriously 
taken stock of her, and had rearranged something 
within itself to feel the need of her and to make room 
for her, gave her a peculiar satisfaction. 

She had moods of tranquil contentment in which 
Helman’s disclosures seemed like the fabrications of 
a noxious imagination, and she felt eager to take the 
doubtful stuff of life into her own hands and to shape 
it resolutely into happier surfaces. 

Her reason joined her fancy with alacrity in these 
moods. What intrinsic bearing, after all, did her 
origin necessarily have to exert upon her life from 
now on? Why need the accident of birth tinge any 
more of her life? Vigorous and bracing resolutions 
swept at the remaining traces of her feeling of inferior¬ 
ity with cleansing and convincing effect. And then she 
would turn to the ancestor and to the picture on the 
table, and would gain a still stronger and more satis¬ 
fying sense of kinship between herself and them. 

There were moments when she lay between con- 

134 


JESSUP 135 

sciousness and slumber that by some beneficent decree, 
the somber ties that had bound her to her own people 
seemed to dissolve, and authentic ties seemed somehow 
to have become established between herself and these 
gracious personalities that had come to dwell with her. 
Gradually the companionship of these personalities 
was emerging from the twilight of her own longing 
through which she had trudged with a whimsical, half- 
choking chuckle, in search of them. Out of these 
shadows of her gentle self-deception, it seemed to her 
that these comprehending images were compassionately 
exercising a tenderness that brought relief from the 
monstrous misgivings that had haunted her. 

Jessup was spending every available hour over her 
drawing board. Her interests had swung definitely 
toward costume work, and in this she was now giving 
free rein to her imagination. She took imaginary bal¬ 
lets and choruses and fitted them out from startling 
headgear to fantastic boots according to her fancy. 
She labored over her sketches as hard as if she were 
under contract to costume an entire production. She 
spent hours in the reference room of the public library, 
studying the modes and fashions of many periods. She 
studied the mysterious draped figures of ancient Baby¬ 
lon, the togas and tunics of Greece and Rome, the skins 
and doublets of old Britain. She lost herself in the 
gorgeous and stately dress of the courts of Louis XIV. 
and XV., and became absorbed in a world of satins and 
laces and crinolines. Sumptuous textures and colors 
revolved through her imagination, and she strove to 
commit impressions of them to paper. 


136 JESSUE 

With energetic and insatiable curiosity, she made 
the acquaintance of the somber Russian garb, the vivid 
hues of the Balkans, the shawls and fans and combs of 
Spanish flirts, the rugged plaids of the Scottish high¬ 
lands, the bright pinks of languid tropical ladies. Her 
studies opened up to her a new and fascinating world 
of ideas. She began to realize how stingily Broadway 
was really dipping into the world’s historic riches, and 
how ineptly the stage was costuming its players. Pos¬ 
sibilities of what could actually be done, and the im¬ 
pulse to try her hand at various daring effects led her 
irresistibly on. 

One day, while in the office of Salant, the producer, 
she discovered a pile of costume sketches on his table. 
They were done with a nicety of professional care, but 
they seemed to Jessup to be lacking in originality. 

“How do you like them?” asked Salant. 

“They’re interesting,” she replied. 

“Well, they ought to be. They cost enough money,” 
grumbled the producer. 

“Who did them?” asked Jessup. 

He mentioned the name of the firm, and continued: 
“I’m not satisfied with this stuff. There doesn’t seem 
to be much kick to them. Look at those red, white, 
and blue parasols,” he growled. 

“Not a great deal of'sparkle, is there?” said Jessup. 

“If my five-year-old nephew couldn’t do better, he’d 
be sent to bed without his supper. By the way, Miss 
Jessup, there’s a good part in this show for you. 
There’s a ’script somewhere around. Here it is. Take 


JESSUP 137 

it home with you and read it. See what you think of 
the part of Elaine.” 

That night, propped up in bed, Jessup read the man¬ 
uscript. But during her reading her attention kept 
straying from the lines and songs of Elaine to the 
possibilities she could see of costuming different parts. 
She remembered the hackneyed conceptions of dress 
that she had seen that day in Salant’s office, and per¬ 
ceived interesting chances for improvement. The ac¬ 
tion was laid on the Bosphorus, and brilliant images 
were forming in her mind. 

She slipped into her dressing-gown and mules, got 
out her paraphernalia, and began blocking out rough 
sketches. 

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, she 
again became engrossed with her sketching; and now, 
by daylight, she was able to carry out the color effects. 
For fully two hours she worked at her drawing-board. 

At two that afternoon, she telephoned Salant for an 
appointment, and half an hour later was at his office. 
His hat was on his head and his feet were on his desk. 

“Well, how do you like your new part?” he de¬ 
manded. 

“It’s all right. But that isn’t what I want to talk to 
you about,” she answered. “I’ve been thinking about 
those sketches I was looking at yesterday.” 

Salant groaned. “For God’s sake, don’t remind me 
of those damn pictures!” 

“You don’t have to use them,” said Jessup, unwrap¬ 
ping her own drawings. “Here’s the way to costume 
some of those numbers,” she added confidently. 


138 JESSUP 

“Who did ’em?” he asked noncommittally. 

“Never mind who did them,” said Jessup. “You see 
there’s color here. And novelty. And sparkle. There 
are ideas here that didn’t come out of Cain’s store¬ 
house. How do you like them?” 

“They look like an amateur’s work,” said Salant. 

“Of course, they’re only rough ideas, hastily ex¬ 
pressed. They will look very different when they’re 
finished,” explained Jessup. 

“You can leave them. I don’t know if it’s anything 
we want or not. I’ve got so damn much to think about 
to-day that I haven’t got time to look at pictures.” 
Salant continued, however, to scan the sketches. 
“There might be some possibilities in them. I don’t 
know. They look kind of fantastic,” he added. 

“That’s exactly what the piece requires,” insisted 
Jessup. “The scene is laid in Stamboul. You don’t 
want a lot of East Side get-up.” 

“Who did these things? What’s the big mystery?” 
questioned Salant. “Did you?” 

Jessup nodded. 

“Say, you stick to your own work. You’re no 
artist.” 

“Very well,” replied Jessup. She was accustomed to 
the gruff ways of theatrical offices, and was not dis¬ 
turbed. “Use the others, if you like.” 

“Leave them here, and I’ll look at them when I’ve 
got more time,” said Salant. 

A few days later Nordahl said to her: “I see you 
did what I told you to do. You went to art school, 
you’ve made progress. You’re coming along. I’m 


JESSUP 139 

glad to see it. You’re on the right track. Keep at it, 
Miss Jessup. I saw your sketches. You’ve got ideas. 
Maybe they’ll work out. I don’t know. We’ll see.” 

Before Jessup could question Nordahl further, he 
dashed on. 

Encouraged, however, by Nordahl’s remarks, Jes¬ 
sup waylaid Salant. 

“Come up to the office,” said the producer. 

Word had leaked out that Salant was casting a new 
production, and there was a flock of applicants in his 
outer office when Jessup arrived. His secretary mo¬ 
tioned to her, and asked in a whisper: 

“Do you want to see Mr. S. ?” 

“Yes, he’s expecting me.” 

“Go on in. He’s there,” whispered the secretary. 
Then she turned to the roomful of people, and said: 
“Mr. Salant won’t be back this afternoon.” 

Jessup heard a murmur of disappointment. She 
knew what it meant to chase from one manager’s office 
to another, and to wait for an interview, and be un¬ 
ceremoniously turned away. She had endured her 
share of that suspense and disappointment, and hoped 
she would never have to taste its humiliations again. 

Salant was at his desk. He did not look up' when 
she entered, but continued to hunt for something in a 
pile of papers on his desk. She crossed to one of the 
windows, and stood looking out at the roofs of the 
Rialto. Then she turned and glanced idly about the 
office. 

The desk was a carved, ornate, kidney-shaped affair. 
There was a grand piano. On the floor lay a Chinese 


140 JESSUP 

rug with grotesque figurations of gold and topaz. 
There was a fireplace with a large divan in front of it. 
On the walls were numerous photographic prints, 
mainly of women, and inscribed in cordial terms to 
Charles Salant. One was the picture of a musical 
comedy star of former days, with whom the producer 
had had a notorious affair. She was a sprightly Vien¬ 
nese whom Broadway had adored for three or four 
seasons; but since Salant had tired of her, she had de¬ 
scended to the level of occasional appearances in vaude¬ 
ville and in cabarets. Jessup knew that their affair 
had broken up, and wondered why he continued to 
feature her picture. 

Looking up, Salant saw Jessup gazing at it intently. 

“I see you’ve found something to interest you,” he 
said. 

“Yes,” said Jessup, without removing her gaze. 
“What became of her?” 

The producer shrugged. 

“She must have been beautiful,” continued Jessup. 

“She was.” 

“I should think you’d want to keep on starring her.” 

“My dear child,” replied Salant, “it would be an 
impossibility for anyone to keep on starring her. She’s 
too stupid. She had face, figure, and a certain amount 
of fascination. But mentality—none.” 

“Weren’t you fond of her?” asked Jessup. 

“Yes, I liked her,” said Salant lightly. “Mental 
stupidity isn’t so bad. But there was an emotional 
stupidity about her. No temperament at all.” 

“Really? Then how did she become so popular?” 


JESSUP 141 

“TKere was enough money spent on her to put over 
a wax image,” said Salant. Then his dark eyes grew 
serious; he folded his arms, and said abruptly: “Look 
here, little girl, what’s all this nonsense of yours?” 

“What nonsense?” asked Jessup. 

“Sketching costumes. You don’t want to get mixed 
up in that sort of thing. What you want to do is to 
stick to your knitting. Why, if you keep on anything 
like the way you’ve started, you’re going to have things 
your own sweet way before so very long. That is, pro¬ 
vided you don’t get it into your head that you can do 
two or three things at the same time. It can’t be done. 
You won’t have to fiddle around much longer with bits. 
I’ll take better care of you next fall.” 

Salant paused. There was a friendly, ingratiating 
warmth in his studious face, which was free from the 
sensual coarseness of most of the managers Jessup had 
seen. The dark skin was clear. There was a deter¬ 
mination about the lips and chin, but the rest of the 
face was almost boyish in appearance. 

“Why don’t you run up and see me once in a' while?” 
he asked. 

“Oh, I’ve been busy,” said Jessup. 

“Don’t let that school business take up all of your 
time. It’s all right to dabble with art, but don’t take 
it too seriously. You’re inclined to be too serious any¬ 
way. That’s a mistake. You need to play more. You 
need to laugh more. If you’re going to play on the 
emotions of your audience, you’ve got to do something 
to keep your own emotions from going stale. I don’t 
believe you’ve ever really been in love.” 


142 JESSUP 

Jessup’s even teeth parted in a slight smile. “You 
don’t?” she asked. 

“I have my doubts. You’ve suffered. I can see that. 
I don’t know what you’ve been through. But what¬ 
ever it was, it’s been a valuable thing to you as an 
actress. But you need something else, too. You need 
to enjoy yourself more.” Salant was looking at her 
intently. His arms remained folded. “Why haven’t 
you been in to see me?” he added. “Do you dislike 
me?” 

“No. Why should I?” asked Jessup, flattered by 
his attentions. She had not suspected that he had given 
her anything beyond casual professional thought. 

“Why have you always avoided me?” he asked. 

“There was no reason for pestering you. You’re 
busy. So am I.” 

“I’m never too busy to see you. You weren’t kept 
waiting to see me to-day, were you?” 

“No, I got in ahead of a lot of others.” 

“Do you know why?” 

“Because I had an appointment, I suppose.” 

“Appointment,” laughed Salant. “Do you suppose 
I see all the people who’ve got appointments with me? 
Not by a damn sight. I’ve left instructions out there 
never to keep you waiting.” 

The situation fascinated Jessup against her will. 

“It’s very courteous of you not to barricade the door 
against me,” she said. 

“Courteous!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing, 
kidding me?” 


JESSUP 143 

“No. I wouldn't dare. You’re too much of a per¬ 
sonage,” said Jessup with great gravity. 

“I can’t quite make you out,” he said thoughtfully. 
“And it isn’t often that I’m puzzled by a woman. It’s 
my business to know all about them.” 

“What puzzles you?” asked Jessup. 

“The way I’ve waited,” he said. “If you had been 
anybody else, and I’d wanted you. I’d have done this 
long ago.” 

With sharp agility he unfolded his arms, and in¬ 
stantly folded them round Jessup. With her back to 
the window, there was no chance for her to evade his 
sudden action. For a moment she did not resist his 
kisses. 

He was making the customary adoring statements. 

“You say it all with practiced glibness,” Jessup man¬ 
aged at length to interpose. 

“That isn’t fair,” he objected. “This is the hardest 
I’ve fallen for anyone in many months. Let me see 
your purple eyes. What is that perfume you use?” 

“Do you like it?” asked Jessup. 

“Where do you get it?” 

“If I told you, I’d be giving away my technique. 
You might tell all the other women you’re making 
love to.” 

“No, I’d buy up all there is, and get it off the mar¬ 
ket, so that no one but you could ever use it.” He 
stopped talking and inhaled deeply. 

“You great big kid,” scoffed Jessup, attempting to 
push him away. 

“Damn it, don’t try to shove me away.” 


144 


r 


JESSUP 

“You’re as Immovable as the rock of Gibraltar,” 
panted Jessup. “Are you trying to push me through 
the window?” 

He drew her away from the window. “You love 
me a little, don’t you?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” answered Jessup indifferently. 

“Why are you so cold?” 

“Ami?” 

“You certainly are.” 

“Like her?” asked Jessup, looking at the picture of 
Salant’s former star. 

“No, you’re nothing like her. You’re full of fire.” 

“Don’t be foolish,” she said, turning her face. “I 
must go.” 

“No, you’ve just come. How do I know when I’ll 
be alone with you again?” 

“There won’t be any lack of others.” 

“What do I care about any others?” demanded 
Salant. 

“Oh, you’ve cared about a lot of others.” 

“What of It?” 

“And you’ll care about a good many more.” 

“Well, I never fall for more than one at a time.” 

“What restraint!” scoffed Jessup. 

“I believe In concentration,” he declared. 

“How long before you usually get tired of a 
3Voman?” asked Jessup, Interested by his candor. 

Salant’s hold relaxed. “Say, you ask a devil of a lot 
of questions!” he exclaimed. 

“Can you blame me?” 

“I can tell fou one thing. I’m not a barn-stormer. 
I’ve never played any one-night stands. And before I 


JESSUP 145 

get through with a girl, I’ve bettered her condition in 
more ways than one. Why, I make them famous. 
You never hear any scandals about me. I never make 
a' promise that I don’t carry out. Do you believe that, 
or have you seen so many dogs on Broadway that you 
think all the men on this street are alike?” 

Jessup scanned the other’s eager features. She was 
comparing him with the quiet, conventional, well-bred 
Ivan Banning. 

“What’s the matter?” demanded Salant. “Is there 
someone else?” 

“This is a funny time to ask. I don’t suppose it 
would make any difference to you if there were.” 

“Not a particle.” Again he tightened his grasp. 
“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” 

An electric buzzer began to snort, and Salant re¬ 
leased her and went to the telephone. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Who? Oh, yes; I’ll see 
him in a minute.” He returned the receiver, and sat 
looking at Jessup from his desk. “There’s an author 
out there that I’ve got to see. Don’t forget what I’ve 
told you.” He paused, filling the pause with his own 
thoughts. “You won’t regret it. I’ll make you hap¬ 
pier than you’ve ever been.” 

Salant extended his hand as if it were the close of a 
formal business interview. 

“About these sketches?” Jessup inquired, shaking 
hands. “What have you decided?” 

“They’re all right,” said the producer. “They’re a 
few jumps ahead of anything I’ve seen lately. I’ll put 
through a voucher right away. You’ll have your check 
in a few days.” 


CHAPTER XII 


Her interview with Charles Salant left Jessup in a 
state of wonder. His blunt candor differed radically 
from men’s usual technique in similar situations. She 
could not help feeling a certain respect for his method. 
She realized that six months ago she might have con¬ 
sidered just this sort of proposal as a dignified and 
justifiable way out of the chorus and into the upper 
levels of theatrical life. But it was an irony that it 
should come to her now, she reflected. It struck her 
as an absurd twist of fate, and left her without much 
faith in the orderly pattern of human affairs. 

She walked hurriedly through the damp, mild twi¬ 
light with a kind of grave amusement, tinged with a 
dash of bitterness. She grew aware of a certain qual¬ 
ity in her temperament that could cast itself into this 
adventure with a fierce abandon. For despite the free 
course her mother had pursued, there had been handed 
down to Jessup a smoldering accumulation of repres¬ 
sions from generation after generation of pious ances¬ 
tors, that cried aloud at this moment for release. She 
realized that again an inner fuse had been touched that 
had sent a running spark into deep recesses of her 
being. 

From the waiting nozzles of psychic fire-extinguish¬ 
ers, however, drenching streams were automatically 

146 


JESSUP 147 

playing upon the inner conflagration, as if the con¬ 
science of her mother had lain in wait all these years 
for this particular day. 

Two men hovered before her in persistent images, 
Banning and Salant, each pleading his separate cause, 
each striving to inflame her with a different kind of 
fire, each the embodiment of a different idea of ro¬ 
mance. 

The love-ideas of these two men were totally dif¬ 
ferent. Salant’s kisses clung to her mouth with a mys¬ 
terious and disturbing tang that Banning’s had never 
projected. Salant had inspired a delicious fear, had 
made her see a blur of Oriental colors and feel the 
brush of strange, enervating winds. The usual terms 
and phrases of resistance had deserted her, and left 
her wondering and curious. She had felt indefinably 
reckless in his arms. 

A check came promptly in payment for her sketches. 
It was for a thousand dollars. 

Jessup knew that it did not represent Salant’s notion 
of the value of her designs. He had belittled them and 
had called them amateurish. It could mean only one 
thing—an initial payment for expected favors. 

She reread the brief note, complimenting her upon 
the originality of her ideas, but warning her not to let 
anything interfere with her stage career. There was 
no reference to personal issues. It was a polite, 
friendly, gracious note. 

Already Jessup was thinking of a dozen places where 
portions of this unexpected money could be spent to 


148 JESSUP 

advantage. Numerous charge accounts at different 
shops were overdue and she was being pressed for pay¬ 
ment. Collectors had called at her apartment. One 
firm was threatening to sue. . . . She had submitted 
her drawings in good faith; they had been accepted and 
paid for. No other considerations, no implicit under¬ 
standing, had entered into the deal. She had made no 
promises. Salant had no authority to jump to any 
conclusions. 

On her way to the matinee, she went to her bank, 
indorsed the check, and deposited it. 

If Jessup felt any misgivings about accepting it, they 
were set still more at rest when she opened her news¬ 
paper the next morning and turned to the theatrical 
news. To her surprise, she discovered a picture of 
herself, two columns in width. The story recited that 
Charles Salant, the producing manager, had discovered 
a genius for costume designing in Miss Jessup, one of 
his players, and had engaged her to design costumes 
for the first of his fall productions. The press-agent 
had spun a romantic yarn. It predicted a “revolu¬ 
tion” in theatrical costuming as a result of the star¬ 
tling originality of the young actress’s ideas, and quoted 
her at length as to her ideas of art and her criticisms 
of prevailing practices. 

“Well, whoever wrote this had his nerve!” gasped 
Jessup. She was addressing the ancestor, who was 
gazing at her with placid eyes. 

But it was impossible to be angry. It began dawn¬ 
ing upon her that she was actually embarked upon a 
career that she had craved. She was no longer just an 


JESSUP 149 

actress, sprung from the chorus. She had acquired 
dignity. Overnight she had reached a prominence 
that others laboriously strove to attain for years. 

Her thoughts reverted to Salant. There was some¬ 
thing pretty white about him, she mused. He had not 
been compelled to give her any such send-off. By this 
announcement to the press he had established her 
identity as an artist. 

It is remarkable what a flamboyant, exaggerated 
newspaper story can sometimes accomplish. Three 
New York newspapers, two press syndicates, and a 
magazine telephoned Jessup the same day for appoint¬ 
ments to photograph her and interview her. Several 
prominent theatrical managers invited her to their 
offices. Her name was placed on the mailing-lists of a 
score of exclusive costumers, modistes, hotels, and 
shops. She was invited to address clubs and classes. 

It became clear to Jessup that she did not have to 
remain on the stage in order to be sure of an earning- 
power. A series of rough sketches, which she had been 
invited to submit to another producer, were approved 
on the spot with but few criticisms, and she was offered 
an attractive commission to prepare the finished de¬ 
signs. But rather than withdraw from her part in the 
musical comedy, she decided to remain until the close 
of the season. 

During the week’s rapid developments. Banning had 
telephoned Jessup once or more each day. He had 
enthused over the newspaper reports of her work. 
He had begged her to see him, but Jessup, on the plea 


150 JESSUP 

of being inordinately busy, had kept putting him ofF. 
Com,pelled to go to Ohio for a few days with Daniel 
J. Murray, head of his firm, for a conference on a city¬ 
planning project. Banning had importunately begged 
Jessup to see him before he went, but again she had 
interposed excuses. 

She felt that she had to have time to think, time to 
orientate herself and to get her emotional bearings. 
Ivan’s proposal of marriage had brought her to a 
sharp pause. His attitude of uncompromising loyalty 
to her impressed her more deeply than anything that 
had ever come into her life. She felt irresistibly drawn 
to him, and the knowledge that such a love as his 
existed, filled her with an exultant thankfulness. It was 
more than she had ever expected; it seemed more than 
she had any right to expect. 

But her exultation was charged with inexorable mis¬ 
givings. She questioned her right to join the doubtful 
elements of her life to Ivan’s destinies. Inescapable 
forebodings were issuing danger signals. Recalling 
the deceit she had used, and the pretense she had prac¬ 
ticed, she wondered if she dared heighten the risk of 
discovery by entering the intimate relations of mar¬ 
riage. In this despairing mood, it seemed a towering 
ingratitude to repay Ivan’s loyalty by yielding to a 
marriage that was sure to be surrounded at the very 
outset by menacing factors that might resolve them¬ 
selves at any moment into disaster. 

The more she brooded over her dilemma, the closer 
she approached the conclusion that she had no right 
to commit herself to a course that was headed straight 


JESSUP 151 

for a region of potential calamity. It seemed better 
never to see Ivan again than deliberately to lead him 
on into this peril zone. She thought of telling him 
everything she knew about her origin, but quickly dis¬ 
missed that alternative as impossible. 

During her fearful meditations, the thought of 
Charles Salant presented itself repeatedly. She had 
written him, thanking him for the check, but had not 
called again at his office. Suddenly she began wonder¬ 
ing desperately if her entire problem could not be set¬ 
tled by giving herself blindly to Salant. She knew that 
he was infatuated with her, that he had had his fill of 
women who were obvious and acquiescent, and that if 
she gave him half a chance, he would seize it. 

Fascinated by this possibility of cutting herself off 
from Ivan in this fashion, she contemplated it with 
fixed absorption. The brutal fact of the kind of blood 
that was in her rose relentlessly before her. It seemed 
folly to try to be something that she knew she was not. 
It seemed criminal to involve the man she cared for. 
In the end, she mused sternly, it might be the kindest 
thing she could do for Ivan never to see him again. 

That afternoon Jessup walked unannounced into 
Salant’s office. She wore a smart tight-fitting toque of 
gray velvet, and a long, snug coat with a high squirrel 
collar. A brisk walk through the clear, cold air had 
sent the blood leaping to her cheeks. 

“Hello I” he exclaimed with pleasure. He took both 
of her cold gloved hands into his, and pressed them 
warmly. “How have you been and how are you? But 
I don’t have to ask. You look good to me.” 


152 JESSUP 

Salant’s dark, moody face grew boyish as he stood 
admiring her. The gloved hands he was grasping acted 
upon him like batteries. The sluggish tide of his blood 
quickened with a rush. 

“Sit down,” he said. “It’s a long time since I’ve 
seen you. How long is it?” He perched himself on 
the edge of his desk. 

“I’ve been terribly busy,” replied Jessup. “It’s all 
your fault, for putting that story in the paper. I’ve 
had mighty little privacy ever since. But it’s all very 
exciting. I’m designing costumes for three new pro¬ 
ductions. It was good of you to start things going. I 
dropped in to say ‘Thank you.’ ” 

“So you like the new work, do you?” 

“Love it.” 

“You’ve got the drive of an engine. The lacka¬ 
daisical dolls that drift in here can hardly climb a flight 
of stairs any more.” He inspected Jessup with pleas¬ 
ure. “If someone hadn’t given you a chance to blow 
off steam, something would certainly have burst-/’ he 
laughed. 

“I felt like a lot of lightning,” said Jessup. 

Salant lapsed into silence. He sat staring vaguely 
at the fading light in the window. Jessup perceived an 
air of petulance and discouragement on his face. When 
she spoke, there was a note of sympathy in her voice. 
Salant detected it. 

“Has anything gone wrong?” she asked. 

“No, nothing special. But once in a while I get most 
hellishly sick of this business,” he complained. 

“Really? I thought you adored it.” 


JESSUP 153 

“TKere’d be more fun in it if one didn’t Have to keep 
an eye everlastingly on the box-office. But as long as 
one has to pander to a lot of half-wits, what chance is 
there to do anything artistic? Giving the public what 
the public wants I The public is full of soup!” 

Jessup was caught by his tone of revolt. 

“Do you know,” he continued, “sometimes I can 
hardly resist the temptation to cut loose as a critic and 
hammer the starch out of one of my own productions. 
For once I should enjoy telling the truth. A publisher 
of books, even though he has to rely for his big profits 
on driveling sentimentality, is able to purge his soul 
every now and again by publishing something really 
fine and standing the loss. But the cost of producing 
any kind of a theatrical piece, even a comedy of man¬ 
ners with the smallest of casts, runs into thousands. 
With this result—that in every production we have to 
strive for the elements of a best-seller. We’ve got to 
supply the demand for sex thrills, but must do it in 
acts and words that will not cause the police depart¬ 
ment to close the show. We have to be suggestive and 
slinking. We have to shock by innuendo.” 

“Well, why don’t you clean house?” asked Jessup. 

Salant made a hopeless gesture. “I have too much 
money invested in this business. Besides, I’m not con¬ 
cerned with public morals. It isn’t my business to up¬ 
lift. It’s my business to entertain. And in order to 
entertain and show profits, I’ve got to cater to a sala¬ 
cious public without offending its scruples. You’ll find 
out quick enough if you go on with designing. You’ve 
got to create something seductive. No matter whether 


154 JESSUP 

you’re designing a pretty little dress, or a gorgeous 
gown, your object has got to be a sex-challenge. The 
finery has to imply the flesh.” 

Jessup flushed. “There was no such motive in the 
sketches you bought from me,^^ she said. 

“That’s why I had to turn them over to some hard¬ 
ened old professionals to touch up and complete,” said 
Salant pleasantly. 

“So that’s what you did? Then my ideas didn’t ap¬ 
peal to you so much after all?” 

“They lacked just a little of the necessary tang, 
that’s all. But you’ll get the hang of it.” 

“Don’t you suppose I have any ideals?” demanded 
Jessup. 

“Like most beginners in this business,” replied the 
producer, “you have entirely too many ideals. I’m not 
without ideals either. But I have to keep them subor¬ 
dinated to practical requirements. And that’s likely 
to be a rather tedious process. It takes time and 
means painful jolts. I’m trying to show you a short¬ 
cut.” 

“You’re very kind,” said Jessup. 

“I’ve been in this business a good many years and 
haven’t many illusions about it left.” 

“I should hate to think all that about the stage,” 
said Jessup thoughtfully. “I should think you would 
be the last person in the world to attack it.” 

“I’m not attacking it. I’m simply looking facts in 
the face,” said Salant. “I’m trying to help you, if 
you’ll let me. You can trust me. You know that, 
don’t you?” 


JESSUP ,155 

“Yes, I suppose so.” 

“Don’t be suspicious.” 

“I’m not,” said Jessup, but her tone left him uncon¬ 
vinced. 

4 

“Now look here. I want you to trust me,” he said. 
“I’ll manage your affairs for you. I’ll see that you get 
what’s coming to you.” 

Jessup nodded guardedly. 

“And what about me?” asked Salant. 

“I don’t know,” said Jessup. “I’ve got to think.” 

“What do you have to think about?” 

“Oh, a lot of things.” 

“All right,” said Salant with a gesture that seemed 
to denote a willingness to bide his time. “Think it all 
over. When will I see you again?” 

“I can’t tell.” 

“I want to know. To-morrow?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“Here’s the telephone number at my apartment.” 
Salant scribbled a number on a pad of paper and 
handed it to her. 

Long and somber thoughts moved through Jessup’s 
mind on her way home. The bluntness of Salant’s final 
statement echoed in her ears. 

She pressed on through the crowds. The lingering 
daylight of late afternoon pierced the cool March air 
in vivid contrast with the early dusks that had de¬ 
scended for months. There was an unmistakable feel¬ 
ing of spring in the air. Jessup noted it with vague 
resentment. It disturbed her to think of the sunny 


156 JESSUP 

days that were coming, of a bright and glittering world. 
In her moodiness she preferred continued greys, and 
mists, and twilights. She felt hunted and pursued by 
inexorable forces. New York, which had drawn her 
to its gates, holding out the promise of a refuge from 
her fearful and relentless introspections, had turned 
upon her with a devilish and laughing ferocity. 

Jangling in her mind were Salant’s parting words, 
but she was surprisedly aware that she did not resent 
his suggestion. At least Charles Salant did not stum¬ 
ble childishly through a world of pretty illusions; at 
least he knew what was what and was willing to deal 
with facts; and he had paid her the compliment of 
making no pretense of limpid love-making. This man 
spun no flimsy, illusory, sweet-sounding theories of life. 
He held in his knowing hands the strong, hard threads 
of realities. She liked him for it, admired him, felt 
confidence in him. This bland, worldly, competent ad¬ 
viser would practice no concealment or deception with 
her. She was convinced that she could trust him. 

It was a relief to Jessup to reflect that here was a 
man whom she could believe. Where others palavered 
and moralized, and messed things up in their ignorance, 
it dawned on her that there was a basic honesty about 
Salant that she could rely upon. The candor with 
which he had talked to her about his relations with 
women had been something of a shock, but it had en¬ 
abled her to know exactly where she stood and what 
she might expect if she became his mistress. She was 
arrested by the man’s uncommon freedom from the 
usual romantic gush. It raised Salant in her esteem, 


JESSUP [157 

An exotic glamour colored his proposals. There 
was a daring quality about Salant’s views, a persuasive 
eloquence that made them acceptable to certain deep- 
rooted tendencies that lay imbedded in herself. There 
was a courageous defiance of established traditions that 
gave her a surreptitious satisfaction and contrasted 
sharply with Banning’s demand that she cross the 
threshold of marriage into doubtful realms from whose 
invisible recesses came indistinct warnings. 

The two men presented themselves in her medita¬ 
tions as the protagonists of vastly different ideas and 
demands. Ivan Banning with his inherent nicety, rep¬ 
resented the sensitive and sheltered product of an es¬ 
tablished social order, jealous of its traditions and sus¬ 
picious of those not born to its privileges. He had 
come to her like a gracious ambassador from another 
land, led on impetuously by his love, making brave 
promises of an affection that would last. He offered 
rescue from the dark anonymity that pressed upon her; 
he came bearing the momentous gift of a name. 

Salant, on the contrary, offered mysterious riches, 
unrelated to the vested rights and privileges of Ban¬ 
ning’s world. The attar and myrrh of Salant’s offer¬ 
ings had not ripened in the sanctity of the social sun. 
His world represented luxurious adventure beneath 
the silken whispering of strange tents. 

Salant would tire of her; he would turn in time to 
someone else; he would pass indifferently out of her 
life; but he would not harm her. His eagerness for 
her would subside; he would turn to other fascinations; 
but he would not make her suffer. Blurred and dreamy 


158 JESSUP 

visions of soothing luxuries floated before her. Across 
the path of her musings drifted nebulous billows of 
color—smoky blues, creamy greens, golden mists that 
swayed and beckoned. She sighed contentedly. 

When Jessup entered her apartment, the telephone 
was ringing. She drew back, realizing that it was prob¬ 
ably Banning. She did not want to hear his voice. 
But the bell kept ringing insistently, as if breaking in 
upon her temptation with volley upon volley of per¬ 
emptory appeal. 

She took the receiver stealthily off its hook and 
placed it on the table to silence the bell. 

Turning, she found the ancestor looking at her enig¬ 
matically. 

“Well?” she demanded with impatient defiance. 

Her gaze crossed to the limpid eyes of the picture 
of the woman on her table. 

“Well?” she repeated in the same voice. 

She went to the window and stood looking at the 
street, at the uncommunicative houses and patches of 
light from window-panes. She flattened her hand 
against the chilly surface of her window, and strove to 
revive her contented vision of billows of seductive 
colors; but her nerves did not respond. A sense of 
being alone pressed into her mind. She could stand it 
to be hurt, but she could not endure being alone. The 
thought of being alone again after Salant was through 
with her alarmed her. She imagined herself becoming 
another’s mistress after Salant was done with her, and 
after that another’s. She saw a gloomy avenue of de¬ 
scent, with youth gradually leaving her, and the years 


JESSUP. 159’ 

thickening about her. Terrified, sKe saw Herself 
headed in the direction Her mother had taken. 

With a hunted cry, she sprang to the telephone. 

“Hello,” she called. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” she 
cried with sudden agony, In a voice that sounded 
strange to her own ears. 

Banning hardly recognized her voice. 

“Is that you, Diana?” he asked. “I just got back 
to town.” 

“Yes,” she said with a moan of relief. “Don’t you 
know my voice?” 

“I wasn’t sure. It sounds a little strange. Have 
you been III?” demanded Banning anxiously. “I was 
just on the point of hanging up. I thought you weren’t 
there. How are you?” he asked with concern. 

“Lonely,” said Jessup. “Lonely,” she repeated with 
terror. 

“I’ll jum.p Into a car and be there In a few minutes!” 
exclaimed Banning. 

“Oh, will you?” asked Jessup, struggling to keep 
her voice from sounding pitiful. “Please hurry. I 
need you so,” said Jessup. 

Then she disconnected quickly tq h]de the distrac¬ 
tion that shook her yoke. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Ivan Banning jumped into a car, and gave the 
driver the familiar address on East Twenty-seventh 
Street. All day he had worried about Jessup, and as 
soon as his train arrived he had rushed to a telephone 
booth. The moment she had answered, he knew that 
something was wrong and that she needed him. Vari¬ 
ous surmises leaped through his mind. He wished to 
God that she were off the stage, and more carefully 
sheltered. He marveled at the pluck with which she 
had fought her way through the obstacles that had 
bristled in the path of her ambitions. He resented the 
attitude of his mother toward the brave efforts of this 
unusual girl. 

He bounded up Jessup’s stairs, impatient to be with 
her. 

“Diana I” he exclaimed, grasping her hands, and 
scanning her face with concern. “Has anything hap¬ 
pened?” 

“I was afraid,” said Jessup. 

“Of what?” 

“Oh, I suppose it’s silly of me.” 

“Not at all. What frightened you?” 

“Everything. The streets—the future—life-” 

“My dear girl, you’re just nervous. You’re v/ork- 

i6o 



JESSUP i6i 

too hard. You re doing twice as much work as 
you ought to be doing. You should be more sheltered. 
You need to be taken care of. I won’t have any more 
of this. It isn t right. I’m going to look after you, 
whether you want me to or not. You shouldn’t be living 
here—this place isn’t nearly good enough for you. 
Things have got to be changed and now is the time. 
Don’t argue with me any more, Diana. You shouldn’t 
be living like this all by yourself. I can’t stand it. 
We’re going to be married. It’s nonsense to wait any 
longer.” 

Banning’s arms were about her, and he was saying: 
“We’re not going to wait any longer. It isn’t right. 
You’ll marry me, won’t you, Diana?” 

“But are you sure you want me to?” asked Jessup 
doubtfully. 

“I was never so sure of anything in my life,” he 
declared with finality. 

“You’ll get tired of me.” 

“I couldn’t possibly.” 

“You’ll regret it,” said Jessup. 

“No, there isn’t any danger of that. I’ll never re¬ 
gret it, and neither will you.” 

“Your people will try to turn you against me.” 

“I’d like to see them try I” 

“Your mother never liked me.” 

“She’ll be crazy about you when she really knows 
you.” 

“I couldn’t bear to have anything happen. I’d rather 
say good-by to you now and never see you again,” said 
Jessup soberly. 


i 62 


JESSUP 

“You’re nervous. You’re wrought up. Nothing can 
possibly come between us,” contended Banning. 

“You don’t know. Why, I’m almost a stranger to 
you.” 

“I know everything about you that I need to know. 
Don’t be afraid.” 

“Would you love me no matter what happened?” 
asked Jessup with intensity. 

“I’ll worship you always,” he answered. “I prom¬ 
ise. I don’t want you to feel the slightest doubt. 
Nothing can possibly change my feeling for you.” 

“But you hardly know me.” 

“I know every mood. And one look at this picture 
of your mother, one look at this portrait, and I know 
all the rest.” 

Jessup’s voice was faint when she replied. 

“But they’re only pictures.” 

“Only pictures?” laughed Banning indulgently. 
“Why, they’re more eloquent than a whole shelf of 
biographies.” His gaze went from the one to the 
other. “They tell the whole story.” 

Now that they were headed straight in the direction 
of marriage, Jessup was as ready as Ivan to eliminate 
further delays. Having hovered momentarily near the 
verge of confessing her deception to him, but having 
let the sudden impulse pass, Jessup no longer consid¬ 
ered telling. It was now too late, and she was con¬ 
vinced that it would be folly to cheat herself out of 
her chance at happiness by raking up the past. 

But during the reading of the marriage service, when 


JESSUP :i 63 

it came to the passage: “I require and charge you both, 
as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when 
the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either 
of you know any impediment, why ye may not be joined 
together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it,” a pecul¬ 
iar faintness moved through Jessup; and the pause at 
the end of the passage seemed almost intolerably pro¬ 
longed, and she felt a grotesque impulse to speak. But 
her tongue felt tied and presently the fluent voice was 
again reading, and in a moment she was solemnly pro¬ 
nounced to be Ivan Banning’s wife. 

It was a fantastic sort of ceremony for a man like 
Banning to have figured in as a principal. Jessup had 
been “given away” by Nordahl, the director, who had 
put her through her first paces in a Broadway chorus, 
who had helped her into a more ambitious role, and 
who had urged her to study art. The other witness 
was Doris, Banning’s sister, who had arrived only a 
few days before from Europe, and gave every indica¬ 
tion of being delighted with the romantic novelty that 
had surprised her on her return. 

“This is what I call sensible,” she declared, as they 
came out of the church. “Don’t you think so, Mr. 
Nordahl?” 

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” asserted Nordahl 
with the same invariable brevity and intensity with 
which he conducted rehearsals at Bryant Hall. “A 
lot of horseplay is all wrong. I don’t believe in it. A 
thing like this should be regarded as an incident. Just 
a happy Incident. No need of a lot of fuss. I know. 
I’ve been married three times. It’s a gamble. Always 


i 64 JESSUP 

a gamble. But you’ll have to pardon me. I’ve got to 
run. I’ve got a new show on my hands. We open in 
another week.” 

Jessup and Banning both protested. 

“But you’ve got to stay for our wedding breakfast, 
Mr. Nordahl!” exclaimed Banning. 

“I can’t. I’m sorry. You must excuse me. My 
time isn’t my own. I’m the worst slave on Broadway. 
I don’t get time to eat.” Nordahl turned to Jessup. 
“You know how it is, Miss Jessup. You know I’d stay 
if I could. I’m fond of you. You know that. I dis¬ 
covered you. You’re going to be happy. I congratu¬ 
late you. Both of you. But I’ve got to run.” 

He rushed off, and disappeared into a yellow taxi. 

“Isn’t he a darling?” exclaimed Doris. “Is he al¬ 
ways in such a hurry?” 

“I never knew him to be otherwise,” laughed Jessup. 
“I warned you,” she said to Ivan, “that he would rush 
right away.” 

They drove to the Hotel Plaza. It was a sunny day 
in late March. Motors sparkled brightly on the clean 
streets. 

“Happy?” asked Doris. 

“Yes,” answered Jessup and Banning in unison. 

“I love your rings,” Doris chattered on, squeezing 
Jessup’s hand. “Mon Dieu, you are stunning. Where 
do you buy your clothes? I had quite forgotten that 
one can get duds in New York.” 

Doris had a way of swaying when she talked. Tem¬ 
peramental fires smoldered in her chocolate-colored 
eyes. Her dark hair was bobbed, her manner mer- 


JESSUP [165 

curial, but her figure threatened to become robust, like 
her mother’s. 

“You devils,” she continued gayly. “I never sus¬ 
pected that you had anything like this up your sleeves. 
You must wire mother.” 

“I’ll do that,” said Banning, whose mother was in 
Hot Springs. 

Jessup, knowing that Ivan had timed their marriage 
to have it occur during his mother’s absence, had no 
illusions as to how Mrs. Banning would receive the 
news. Indeed, it was a pleasant surprise to her that 
Doris had lent herself so enthusiastically to the project. 

“It’s a pity you two aren’t starting directly on your 
honeymoon,” said Doris. 

“That’s got to wait for another month or so,” re¬ 
plied her brother. “Diana insists on staying with the 
show until it closes.” 

“Hang on to your independence,” said Doris to Jes¬ 
sup. “Don’t let yourself be tamed. But with a rea¬ 
sonable amount of independence, there’s no reason 
why being a wife can’t provide some of the thrill of 
being a mistress.” 

Ivan frowned. 

“Is that what Paris did to you?” he asked. 

Ivan’s mother did not take the trouble to reply to 
her son’s telegram announcing his marriage. She was 
angered, but not surprised. But when she discovered 
in one of the New York papers a story of the event, 
including a picture of Jessup, and an exaggerated ac¬ 
count of her fame as an actress and her talent as a 


i66 JESSUP 

costume designer, and of Banning’s wealth and social 
position, she clipped the story and mailed It to Ivan’s 
office with sneering marginal comments. 

Pained by this communication from his mother,* 
Banning took care not to let Jessup see It. He intended 
to shield her from definite knowledge of his mother’s 
stubborn resentment. He could see trouble ahead, but 
with Doris’s breezy aid he was confident that the un- 
happy condition could at length be controlled. 

A suitable and attractive apartment was soon found 
in East Sixty-sixth Street, and Banning and Jessup were 
now busy furnishing it. They had already picked up 
a number of odd pieces of furniture, and now, with the 
apartment available In another fortnight, they lost no 
time placing orders for the rest of their furniture. 
They had decided upon an English and Italian treat¬ 
ment, and their hunt for appropriate chairs, tables, 
cabinets, rugs, and draperies, occupied most of Jes¬ 
sup’s free time. They kept an eye on the various auc¬ 
tions and there they managed to get possession of a 
number of unusual old pieces. 

But these auctions had a singularly distressing effect 
on Jessup. The crowds of dealers, collectors, interior 
decorators, and idlers, eying like so many vultures the 
contents of homes that had to be broken up, staring at 
possessions that It had taken someone a lifetime to 
accumulate, rarely failed to fill her with a sense of pity 
and compassion. It seemed so unfair to her, these 
miserable tricks that life played on people. Nothing 
had ever impressed her more clearly with the futility 
of human striving than to see the entire contents pf 


JESSUP 167 

homes knocked down to the highest bidder and carted 
away. Here were the careful, painstaking acquisitions 
of generations, torn from their cherished places and 
scattered to the very winds in a few relentless hours. 

It made her pause; it made her wonder if the home 
that she and Ivan were so carefully establishing might 
be headed in the somber direction of a similar destiny. 
She thought of the scrimping and planning and schem¬ 
ing that had gone into these sorry exhibits of goods, 
and of the struggle of human beings to express them¬ 
selves in these trappings of domesticity. Gazing 
through and beyond these household arrays, she per¬ 
ceived quests that had penetrated the market-places of 
the world in fumbling endeavors to put houses in order. 
She thought of the dusty, brooding. Oriental bazaars, 
the stalls of remote rug-weavers and cabinet-workers, 
the wheels of potters, the innumerable counters and 
booths at which these auction-room arrays had been 
haggled for, and bargained for, and from which they 
had been lugged home over leagues of travel. 

She thought of the struggles of these successive 
owners to keep hold of their treasures. She had visions 
of the various tragedies that had wound up in the 
auction-room—bankruptcy, death, and the drifting 
apart of people who at length could no longer counte¬ 
nance the presence of objects that reminded them of 
ties that had grown intolerable. 

It seemed to Jessup at times that she would have to 
rush out of sight of these substances of tragedy, out 
into the sunshine. A listlessness crept over her; it 
s eemed wrong to be rounding out her own home with 



•i68 JESSUP 

these pickings and snatchings from the belongings of 
others. Sometimes it seemed to her that a curse would 
surely follow objects thus obtained. 

But the fever of acquisition would stream insidiously 
through her, and entice her into making bid after bid. 
But during the lulls in her bidding, she would often sit 
with gloomy forebodings, wondering if she too would 
ever come to this, and if her own carefully collected 
things would ever be seized and catalogued, and put 
under the hammer. 

Fragmentary scenes of imaginary dissension between 
her husband and herself would enact themselves in her 
mind; the knife-blades of hostile dialogue would glisten 
and glitter in her imagination; incredible bursts of an¬ 
ger would rush into involuntary action, until her nerves 
would tighten and her face grow stern. 

At one such moment, Banning happened to be look¬ 
ing at her. 

“What is it, Diana?” he demanded, startled. 

Recalled by his voice, Jessup’s mood changed, and 
she smiled, and said; 

“I’m all right. Why do you ask?” 

“Something seemed to be troubling you,” he an¬ 
swered with concern. 

“Do you think I did a foolish thing to bid so high 
on that mirror?” 

“Not at all.” 

Jessup sighed. “It’s just what I’ve been wanting. 
But think of all the faces, all the moods, it has re¬ 
flected. I’m glad that the glass is so blurred. It must 


JESSUP 16 ^ 

have shown no end of women that they were growing 
old.’’ 

“It will be a long time before you could discover any¬ 
thing like that In It,” smiled Banning. “They’re put¬ 
ting up number fifty-nine,” he added. “That piece of 
brocade you were looking at. Do you want It?” 

“No. Let’s get out Into the sun.” 

The bright, lucent afternoon had deepened Into a 
brownish grey when they emerged into the street. 

“It must be late. I had no Idea we were In there so 
long,” said Jessup. “What time have you?” 

“It’s only four.” 

“Do you have to go back to the office?” 

“I think I’d better. I have some mall to sign. Won’t 
you come along? I’ll be ready to start home shortly.” 

“No, I have a little shopping to do.” 

“Then I’ll see you for dinner. By the way,” added 
Banning, seizing this as an opportune moment to men¬ 
tion a subject that he had been deferring. “Mother 
Is back from Hot Springs. She asked about you and 
wants us to have dinner with her to-morrow evening. 
I think we’d better go.” 

It was Mrs. Banning’s first sign of recognition of 
Jessup since the marriage. 

“Have you seen her?” asked Jessup In surprise. 

“She telephoned yesterday. I ran up for a moment 
In the afternoon.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I’m telling you now.” 

“Did you ask your mother to Invite me?” 


lyo JESSUP 

“No. She spoke of it herself. But I’ve got to get 
over to the office. Have to see Cooper on an impor¬ 
tant matter before he gets away. I can’t argue things 
[with you now.” Again Banning looked at his watch. 

“I’m not arguing.” 

“I mean that I can’t stop to answer a lot of ques¬ 
tions just now. Suppose I telephone mother that we’ll 
dine with her to-morrow. May I?” 

“It wouldn’t hurt her to run in and see Jessup 
answered. 

“I know it wouldn’t, dear. But as long as things 
are more or less strained, I thought this dinner idea 
might break the ice. What do you say?” 

Jessup hesitated. “It puts me in an embarrassing 
position,” she said. 

“Oh, there’s no need to feel that way about it,” re¬ 
plied Banning. 

“How can I help it?” 

Banning’s hold tightened on her arm. “I under¬ 
stand exactly how you feel,” he said. “I can’t tell you 
how sorry I am. But sooner or later, and somehow or 
other, the thing has got to be ironed out, and we’ve 
all got to get on a reasonable basis with each other, and 
this seems to me to be as good a time as any. We 
must, at least, concede that mother has made the first 
move. And now let’s show her that there aren’t any 
hard feelings.” 

^^You have dinner with her,” answered Jessup. 
“Xfiere’s no reason why you and she should be es¬ 
tranged. But there really isn’t a particle of sense in 
my trotting along. I’m absolutely nothing to your 
mother; she’s made that perfectly clear.” 


, JESSUP 171 

A look of disappointment settled upon Banning’s 
face. “You’ll feel better about it when you think it 
over,” he said, and started away. 

The look of pain on her husband’s face followed 
Jessup for the rest of the afternoon. Already she was 
sorry that she had spoken so bluntly. If it would make 
Ivan any happier, how could she refuse to go? Be¬ 
sides, it was precisely the sort of thing she had ex¬ 
pected; but Ivan’s off-handed manner of speaking of it 
had ruffled her a little. 

While these thoughts were revolving through her 
mind, suddenly they sharpened into more angular out¬ 
lines. Why should she condone this woman’s offenses 
merely because she was Ivan’s mother? Her face 
darkened, for now she was thinking of her own mother, 
and of the offense which, if Ivan ever found it out, 
would doubtless cause him to turn from her as if from 
son^thing vicious and corrupt and defiled. It came to 
her that the only way she could hold him was by means 
of a carefully fabricated system of deception. 

Once more the city which had loomed round her of 
late in soft, gray outlines resumed a hard and forbid¬ 
ding appearance. Its massive bulwarks of buildings, 
its guarded doors, the austerity of even its tabernacles 
and cathedrals with their bayonetlike spires, all 
seemed to be closing in upon her. The apparent friend¬ 
liness of the city had only been another illusion. The 
feeling that she was welcome and that the city was 
making a place for her in its hard bosom, no longer 
deceived her. It was all illusion, phantasm, and mi¬ 
rage. Her surroundings were hostile and suspicious 
of her. New York seemed clairvoyantly to perceive 


[172 JESSUP 

that there was something wrong with her. The shad¬ 
owy something that she had striven with all her cour¬ 
age and energy to live down and stamp out of herself, 
had stuck to her with imperious tenacity. 

These thoughts were spinning through her mind, 
and were swiftly rousing and reviving the old fighting 
qualities that had lately been lying dormant. Her red 
lips parted with a certain eagerness: her sensitive hands 
doubled up in their ivory-tinted gloves into fists: and 
her eyes sparkled with purplish electric currents. 

Again she felt like lightning; but this time she knew 
where to strike. 

At dinner that evening, JesWp’s mood was jovial. 
She had reached a decision on her way home^. and It 
satisfied her. It had taken shape out of mists of un¬ 
certainties and misgivings, which had receded the mo¬ 
ment she had made her decision. Her relief was re¬ 
flected by her gayety. 

“You are In good spirits to-night,” said Banning. 
“You don’t regret any of your bidding at the auction?” 

“No, and I’m not going to be disturbed by the 
thought of all those Italian women who saw them¬ 
selves growing old In that mirror!” she replied. 

“It’s not such a tragedy to grow old,” he returned. 

“Take your mother, for Instance,” continued Jessup. 
“Having attained a graceful middle age, she’s to be 
envied.” 

Banning looked up suddenly at the change In Jessup’s 
attitude. 

“It must be a comfort,” she added, “to reflect that 
one’s youthful inexperience, follies, and upsets are 



JESSUP 173^ 

behind one, and that the poise, good judgment and 
common sense of the fifties have been safely acquired.” 

“Yes, I think you’re quite right,” agreed Banning, 
concealing his delight at Jessup’s respectful and gen¬ 
erous views. “Have you given any more thought to 
mother’s invitation?” he inquired. 

“Yes, I’ll go.” 

“I haven’t said much, but I can’t help holding it 
against her the way she ignored our marriage. It made 
me pretty hot at the time. Confound it, she ought to 
have been overjoyed at my getting you.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Jessup made haste to reply. 
“She knew so little about me, and I made so few over¬ 
tures to her myself, and the thing happened so abruptly 
that I don’t wonder in the least that she felt more or 
less alarmed for your future.” 

Ivan looked pleased. “That’s big and generous of 
you,” he answered. 

“Well, that’s exactly the situation. I consider myself 
to blame, and I’m going to try to make amends.” 

“You’re a regular brick,” declared Ivan with enthusi¬ 
asm. “Once mother knows you, she will realize what a 
lucky dog I am and what a lot of reason she has to be 
offering thanks that I got you.” 

He beamed at Jessup with relief, for the wall of 
restraint between themselves and his mother had 
troubled him deeply. 

“Then we’ll go,” he said with satisfaction. 

He had responded to Jessup’s tactics precisely as 
she had expected. Yet the certainty, now that it had 
been established, that he was willing, even eager, to 
have her efface herself before this woman who had 


174 JESSUP 

deliberately inflicted deep and permanent wounds upon 
her, left Jessup with a secretly diminished respect for 
Ivan and a secretly heightened antipathy for his 
mother. 

“I’ll tell her we’re coming,” he said, going to the 
telephone. 

“Remember me to her cordially,” said Jessup. 

Throughout the conversation that followed, Jessup’s 
face was an imperturbable mask. The telephone 
assumed the character of an intruder and conspirator 
in her home. A resentment against the object that 
made possible this fostering of the relations between 
Ivan and his mother, took possession of Jessup. Ivan’s 
brief, fragmentary remarks denoted a needless guard¬ 
edness on his part, and Jessup had to conclude that the 
conversatioh was taking a turn not meant for her ears. 
There was a cautiousness, a brevity about Ivan’s 
speech that struck Jessup as an affront, and stamped 
the thought into her mind that there was more of an 
understanding between the two than she had supposed. 
These meager phrases and sentences without endings, 
were as irritating as if the other two had been whisper¬ 
ing together while in the same room with her. 

But as she finished her coffee, toyed with her cigar¬ 
ette, and listened, her face remained masked and 
impassive. . . . 

A forgiving peck on Jessup’s cheek from the lips of 
Ivan’s mother conveyed the sign of welcome and of 
truce. 

“Ivan dear, it was rather brutal of you to put Diana 
here to all the inconveniences of such a hurried mar- 


JESSUP 175 

riage,” declared Mrs. Banning, turning a look of 
smiling reproof upon her son. 

“Can you blame me?” he demanded, putting his arm 
around Jessup. 

“Of course not,” replied his mother politely, but 
without enthusiasm. 

“The guilt,” put in Jessup in a voice of conciliation, 
“was largely my own.” 

“Still,” sighed Ivan’s mother, “if I had only kept 
in closer touch with this young man’s affairs, and if I 
had invited more of his confidence, a run-away match 
would hardly have been considered necessary. How¬ 
ever, the deed is done. Consider yourselves spanked 
and forgiven.” 

She spoke as if she had carefully rehearsed the 
reproving but benevolent speech. Following it, there 
was a moment of painful silence which was presently 
broken by Banning, who inquired if Doris was about. 

“Doris might almost still be abroad for all I see of 
her,” complained Mrs. Banning with a neglected air. 
“She rushes in and rushes out.” 

“It does her good to keep busy,” said her son. 

Mrs. Banning sank heavily back against her inevita¬ 
ble cushions, which her son was adjusting for her. 

“I can’t say that I can work up much enthusiasm 
about this crowd that she’s running with,” she con¬ 
tinued. “She had an artist of some kind here for 
dinner the other night. An unkempt, ratty sort of 
fellow, who kept apologizing for his need of a shave. 
At the dinner table—just fancy. It seems that he 
wants to paint my portrait. Imagine sitting for himJ^ 


i7"6 JESSUP 

Throughout "dinner Mrs. Banning trained the guns 
of her disparagement and sarcasm upon the crowd that 
Doris “ran with” since her return from abroad. She 
isolated one specimen after another of these artistic 
folk and found fault with them. She displayed her 
contempt for the Bohemian life in general and enlarged 
from numerous angles upon her disapproval of dabblers 
in the arts. While the attack was meant for Jessup, it 
was politely directed at others. Jessup was amused and 
pretended not to be aware that she was being ham¬ 
mered. Ivan became nettled, and once he burst out: 

“But, good heavens, mother, you sent Doris abroad 
for no other purpose than lo dabble in art! Surely 
you can’t expect her to have a great deal in common 
with a lot of corn-fed business men or inane society 
women with nothing on their minds but trouble with 
their servants and the latest scandals.” 

“I’m disappointed in her taste,” retorted Ivan’s 
mother. “A soiled shirt is not necessarily a sign of 
genius, and vulgar language at a respectable table does 
not necessarily prove any ability to produce master¬ 
pieces. When I see Doris fraternizing with people 
like that, it makes me realize that I have failed as a 
mother.” 

“Well, it’s doubtless only a passing interest,” replied 
Ivan. “She’ll get over it.” 

“I wonder,” answered Mrs. Banning portentously. 
“It wouldn’t surprise me to see her marry one of these 
fellows.” 

Banning writhed under the implication of his moth¬ 
er’s last sentence. His face flushed with anger. He 
considered the blow a deliberate foul. But before he 


JESSUP 177 

could reply, he was relieved to hear the sound of Jes¬ 
sup’s voice. It was amiable and under perfect control. 
She said: 

“I can quite understand a mother’s anxiety that her 
daughter should marry well. If I had a daughter 1 
should consider that I had neglected my duty if she 
did not marry into the highest possible station.” 

There was a ring of unquestionable sincerity, of 
grave and inflexible intent in Jessup’s words. They 
arrested Mrs. Banning’s attention because they were 
charged with a glinting ambition, with an unmistakable 
respect for the established order which the older 
woman adored. 

“Exactly,” said Ivan quickly. 

“It is an excellent theory,” said Mrs. Banning with 
a malice that did not penetrate her tone. “But in 
practice it does not usually work out so well. Children 
are too headstrong. Usually they don’t pay the slightest 
heed to the wishes of their parents.” 

Ivan was trying in vain to conceal his fury. 

“That is to say,” continued Ivan’s mother, “if any¬ 
thing so conventional as marriage could attract Doris. 
These young moderns seem to think that high thinking 
and loose living go together.” 

“To me,” said Jessup reflectively, “marriage is the 
only thinkable alternative.” 

“Yes, I dare say,” rejoined her mother-in-law 
loftily. 

Ivan looked at his wife with a sudden tenderness 
that made him ignc.re his mother’s final statement. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Highly satisfied with the tactfulness with which 
Jessup had conducted herself during the trying ordeal, 
Banning surveyed with pleasure the less formidable 
family problem that was now presented. He saw no 
reason why the truce that had been established between 
the two women should not develop gradually into 
friendly if not cordial relations. 

Jessup was glad that she had contrived with apparent 
success to carry her intentions into action, and no 
longer questioned her ability to maintain the relations 
necessary to the accomplishment of her ends. She 
congratulated herself upon having made a fair start 
before her marriage, in a career other than acting; it 
gave her confidence in herself; it banished the feeling, 
which would have been intolerable, that she was attach¬ 
ing herself like a parasite to the Bannings. 

Her social life had expanded rapidly since her 
marriage; she and Ivan spent a week-end with the 
Coopers at their home near White Plains, and another 
with the Murrays at Forest Hills. Jessup liked the 
members of Ivan’s firm, and contact with their family 
life was something new and agreeable to her. Invita¬ 
tions to teas, luncheons, and suppers came in quick 
succession, and Jessup had met a dozen of Doris’s 
friends, including a dramatic critic, a sculptor of sorts, 

178 


JESSUP 179 

a magazine editor, a singer or two, and a flock of social 
idlers, male and female, who affected sophistication 
and consumed one another’s bootleg liquor. 

One night after Doris and her hilarious crowd had 
left the apartment. Banning turned to Jessup with a 
gesture of relief, and said: “Thank God they’re gone. 
There’s no sense in keeping you up like this until all 
hours. Doris ought to have more sense.” 

“It’s all right,” said Jessup. “I’m not tired. I’m 
glad that Doris feels free to bring people around.” 

“She takes too much for granted,” objected Banning. 
“Why, she’ll turn this place into a madhouse if we 
let her. I’m not so fond of that crowd of hers.” 

“They’re interesting,” replied Jessup. 

“That dramatic critic reminds me of a pussy-cat. It’s 
absurd to permit an individual like that to presume to 
sit in judgment over a play which costs money to pro¬ 
duce.” 

“You seem to be more interested in Nan Sedley,” 
replied Jessup. 

“That singer? She’s rather amusing. But she 
wears too much junk.” 

“Yes, she gets herself up to look more or less like a 
gypsy,” agreed Jessup. “I’d like to hear her next 
recital. How do you like Mrs. Trouver?” 

“That uncorseted person? To hear her talk, one 
would think that profanity had just been discovered, 
and that it was the crowning feature of social chatter. 
I can’t stand her. She looks like the madam of a 
fast-house,” said Ivan. 

Startled by Ivan’s phrase, Jessup strove to appear 


i8o 


JESSUP 

unconcerned. In a tone that she attempted to keep 
light and casual, she asked: 

“What does the madam of a fast-house look like?” 

“Like Mrs. Trouver.” 

Consumed with an acute curiosity to get answers to 
questions that had crowded her mind for years, Jessup 
said in a careless tone: 

“Tell me about those resorts. What are they like? 
Are there many?” 

“There used to be. Most cities have abolished their 
segregated districts.” 

Jessup’s heart was pounding. “What are the women 
like?” she asked. 

“There are all kinds,” said Banning shortly. 

“Are they at all attractive?” 

“Some are.” 

“I wonder what drives them to that sort of life,” 
mused Jessup aloud. “Viciousness, do you suppose?” 

“No, I don’t think so. Most of them have been 
seduced and consider themselves ruined anyway. Many 
are over-sexed. Some are just after easy •money, I 
suppose.” 

*‘Easy money?” repeated Jessup guardedly. 

Banning yawned. “It is generally supposed to be a 
lazy and profitable profession, I believe. But it’s 
getting so that you can hardly recognize prostitutes 
any more. The so-called painted lady has learned 
how to appear shy and subtle, while the other kind has 
learned how to paint and flirt. Besides, it has become 
so common for men to have their mistresses, that a 
fellow is likely to do his roving without an awful lot of 


i8i 


JESSUP 

secrecy. On the other hand, I suppose there are still 
any number of cautiously conducted resorts where 
timid rounders can have their brief affairs without too 
much risk of being observed.” 

Jessup was silent for a moment. Then yielding to a 
sudden impulse, she said: 

“Do you know, I’ve sometimes had an uncanny 
curiosity to see the inside of a place like that. I suppose 
there is a streak of morbid curiosity in every woman,” 
she made haste to add. 

Banning gave her a puzzled look. 

“I can’t imagine the kind of men who go there.” 

“You’d be surprised at some of the men you’d find,’* 
said Ivan. 

“What kind?” 

“All kinds. Prominent men. Why, I’ve seen emi¬ 
nent men in brothels. There's no accounting for the 
strain of depravity in some of them.” 

“I can see how men would lead free and easy lives,” 
answered Jessup. “But how a woman could tolerate 
a different man every night-” 

“Oh, that kind doesn’t limit herself to just one man 
in the course of a night,” broke in Banning with a 
brutal effort to terminate a disagreeable conversation. 

His contemptuous tone sent a chill through Jessup. 
But the subject fascinated her. A question kept haunt¬ 
ing her. Presently she asked it: 

“Do women like that ever have children?” 

Banning directed a quick and quizzical look at her. 

“I never heard of it happening,” he replied. 

“Of course they could, couldn’t they?” she asked. 



i 82 


JESSUP 

“I guess so. But I should think they’d become 
sterile,” said Banning. He reached for a magazine, 
and began turning the pages. 

“I wonder if a woman like that might not encounter 
a man sooner or later by whom she’d like to have a 
child,” said Jessup in a tone so casual and deceptive that 
it gave no hint that this question had stormed insistently 
through her mind for years. 

“Yes, I suppose she might,” answered Banning 
absently, reading his magazine. “I’m sure I don’t 
know.” 

Jessup sat looking at her husband’s slender, fastidi¬ 
ous face, at his thin lips and placid chin. Only a few 
feet of space separated him from the knowledge of the 
unspeakable facts that lay coiled cruelly in her mind. 
She felt an hysterical impulse to tell him what she knew. 
She wondered if there was devotion enough in the 
world to sustain a husband under the crash of such a 
disclosure. After all, why shouldn’t she tell him? He 
loved her. Why shouldn’t he know the facts about 
her origin? The words floated up in her mind, and 
were almost on her lips. Then she stopped herself 
abruptly. In that instant she resolved not to be de¬ 
ceived by her reason. Never would she tell him. 

“A woman like that might fall in love, I suppose,” 
she said, in the same discreet tone. 

“Yes, it’s not inconceivable,” conceded Banning. 

“I should think she’d be hungry for love,” escaped 
from the questioner. 

Ivan read in silence for a moment. “I’m sure I don’t 
know,” he said indifferently. 




JESSUP 

His bored reply sent a peculiar emotional wave 
through Jessup. She grew hot with an unreasoning 
resentment at his indifference to the questions that had 
finally made their escape from the pent-up secret that 
was torturing her. A strange inner fury lashed at the 
calmness with which she was looking at him. Her 
effort to keep control of herself made her tense. The 
unseen struggle raged for a moment, and then 
subsided. 

“I suppose you’ve been reading some of this modern 
realistic truck?” asked Ivan presently without looking 
up. “They’re printing a lot of garbage of late. It’s 
a wonder they permit it.” 

“Should a thing be forbidden just because it’s 
unpleasant?” demanded Jessup. 

“Well, there’s no sense in poisoning people’s minds,” 
he retorted. 

His reluctance to discuss the subject that Jessup had 
at last touched upon confirmed her impression of a 
nicety on his part, a scrupulous propriety, that could 
only be expected to shrink from so ugly a subject. She 
was aware that this quality, so rare in men, was one of 
the elements that had drawn her ineluctably to him. 
That Ivan Banning, product of a sheltered ancestry 
and squeamish traditions, should have been the one 
to turn for her the knobs of doors that had been 
securely closed against her, struck her as an irony. A 
look of inarticulate pity for him entered her eyes. She 
would see to it that the dreary truth was kept from him. 

As if the pressure of Jessup’s mood had impinged 
upon his nerves. Banning suddenly looked up and 


i84 JESSUP 

regarded her thoughtful face anxiously. “Are you 
worried about the escapades I may have had?’’ he asked 
uncomfortably. 

“No,” she replied. 

“Is a woman ever entirely Impel sonal?” he Inquired 
guiltily. 

“I was only thinking of the tragedy of that sort of 
thing to a woman,” said Jessup. 

“The tragedy? I don’t know that it’s such a tragedy. 
Any human relations are likely to be unhappy,” replied 
Ivan. “Marriage Isn’t necessarily a guaranty of hap¬ 
piness. As for the tragedy of Informal relations, it’s 
likely to hit a man just as hard as a woman.” 

“Do you think so?” 

“But I suppose that women will always be regarded 
as the abused and oppressed sex, and men as the triflers 
and seducers.” 

“I can see that that’s a mistaken notion,” replied 
Jessup. “It’s just as much In some women’s tempera¬ 
ments to be lax as In some men’s.” 

“Yes, and in a great many cases,” answered Ivan, 
“it doesn’t damn a woman any more than It does a 
man. I’ve heard of plenty of men who married women 
of just that type, and It turned out very happily. Why, 
there’s a city out west whose oldest and best families 
date back to attachments formed between the miners 
and the camp-followers during the days of the gold 
rush. In fact, they’ve built up a substantial aristoc¬ 
racy.” 

JeSwUp felt a thickening In her throat. 


JESSUP :i85 

“Aristocracy?” she repeated, with a veiled ring of 
triumph. 

“Why not?” asked Ivan. 

“Pm surprised to find you so tolerant, that’s all,” 
said Jessup casually. 

“As a rule, you’ll find men a good deal more tolerant 
about these things than women.” 

“Then relations like that can’t always be entirely 
sordid,” said Jessup in a voice so sharply controlled 
that it did not betray the poignancy of her emotion. 

“Certainly not,” answered Ivan, who was again 
occupied with his reading. 

Jessup’s questioning stopped abruptly. There was 
nothing more that she wanted to know. An absorbing 
satisfaction pervaded her like a shaft of light pene¬ 
trating an inner dusk, a dusk of long-accumulated 
doubts and perplexities. 

She did not trust herself to remain in the room with 
her husband. She went to her bedroom and stood 
tracing aimless designs on the window-pane. The 
choking sensation in her throat increased. It was as 
if Ivan’s voice had reached into the past with a 
strangely cleansing effect; and his fragmentary replies 
to her questions adhered to her mind like golden 
cobwebs. 


CHAPTER XV 


The golden cobwebs that clung to Jessup’s mind as 
a result of Ivan’s answers, imparted a sense of reas¬ 
surance. For the first time since the embittering scene 
with her grandfather, she felt measurably emanci¬ 
pated from the dragging and repellent sordidness with 
which she had regarded the circumstances of her origin. 
Banning’s remarks, tossed off lightly, had set at rest 
some of her blackest misgivings. 

The dragging knowledge that had lurked in the 
depths of her nature, no longer pressed with its old 
insistence against the surfaces of her consciousness. 
She was able now to forget it for days at a time. The 
appeasing fancy that she might have sprung from a 
finer impulse cheered her spirit. 

In one such mood she entered St. Patrick’s Cathe¬ 
dral. The solid masonry of the enormous structure, 
the lofty arches, the solemn hush, empty pews, ornate 
altars, lighted candles, and elusive figures of priests, 
recalled the groves and chapel of the convent in which 
she had spent her girlhood. Forgotten reveries re¬ 
vived and. early dreams trailed hauntingly through 
her mind. The first comforting conceptions of her 
father and mother floated before her, resurrected from 
the darkness into which they had been thrust during 
the scene with her grandparents. 

186 


JESSUP :i 87 

Perhaps the outlines of those early conceptions werQ 
more nearly right after all, she reflected, than the 
harsher ones of her later impressions. 

Her mood flooded her with tranquillity; she felt 
singularly at peace. The city, scarved in a greyish-blue 
April haze, purred amiably. Jessup’s fair, clean skin 
glowed healthily; there was confidence in her eyes and 
. gait. She felt grateful for having so fine a husband. 
Doris had proved an excellent friend, and Mrs. Ban¬ 
ning had admirable qualities. Jessup recalled the 
resentful attitude with which she had accompanied 
Ivan to his mother’s a fortnight or so ago. She remem¬ 
bered how deliberately and cunningly she had deter¬ 
mined to ingratiate herself with the older woman for 
the sake of securing unobstructed access to the social 
levels of the family and of paving the way to eventual 
possession of Ivan’s share of the property. In this 
mellowed mood, the reasoning that had taken her to 
Ivan’s mother with a great show of penitence seemed 
unworthy, and she resolved henceforth to feel nothing 
but genuine good-will. It was like stepping out of an 
old, scaly skin, and emerging into the glistening air 
of a new and friendly world. 

From this day on, her brushes and pigments flew. 
Her imagination seemed to shake itself loose. The 
straining efforts of her apprenticeship seemed suddenly 
to be over; her invention blossomed; her sense of color 
expanded; she seemed to have discovered an inner eye 
that had heretofore been sightless. 

When she called soon afterwards at Salant’s office 
with a set of new sketches, the producer spread them 


-i88 JESSUP 

out before him on his desk, and stared at them for sev¬ 
eral minutes in silence. At length he turned to hei^ 
and said: 

“You’re getting better.” 

“Do you like them?” she asked, gratified. 

“You’re not as stiff as you were. You’ve got more 
freedom into them. There’s more sing to your colors.” 
Salant paused. Then he added abruptly: “So you 
went and got married.” 

“Yes.” 

In Salant’s eyes was the old frank look of inspection. 

“Happy?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 

“And I made a damn fool of myself,” said . e pro¬ 
ducer. 

“In what way?” asked Jessup. 

“Not taking you when I could. I had a quixotic 
notion of making you come to me. Do you remember 
the day you were in here just before you got mar¬ 
ried?” he demanded. 

“Yes,” answered Jessup, remembering the impul¬ 
siveness with which she had come and later her walk 
through the mist. 

“I couldn’t quite make you out that day. [You 
seemed almost ready.” 

“It would have been a mistake,” said Jessup with 
ingenuous candor. “I couldn’t have gone through 
with it.” 

“Why not? I’m not so impossible, am I?” asked 
Salant. 

“No.” 


JESSUP i 89 

“You yidn’t dislike me. You don’t dislike me how.” 

“No. But I couldn’t have gone through with it,” 
repeated Jessup. 

“You thought it was safer to get married. Was 
that it? A regular husband has his uses. Everybody 
knows that. But you’ll get tired of him.” 

“No, I think you’re mistaken.” 

“You’ve got too much fire in you. You’ll get tired 
of him. And just as soon as you do. I’ll know it.” 

Jessup shook her head. 

“I’ll know it. And so will you,” said Salant in hyp¬ 
notic tones. 


The play closed early in May, and Jessup promised 
herself that her acting career was over. 

Already she was busily occupied with costume designs 
for a number of productions scheduled to open early 
in the fall. One of the rooms in her apartment, having 
excellent north light, she equipped as her studio. She 
was gradually assembling a library of carefully selected 
books on costumes, and was grateful for her smatter¬ 
ing of German and French which enabled her to add 
numerous valuable volum.es in those languages to her 
working equipment. 

By way of a belated honeymoon. Banning tried to 
arrange a trip to Europe, but the rush of post-war 
building activities caused his two partners to urge him 
to stay in America, both of them having likewise can¬ 
celed their own vacation bookings. The result was 
that the Bannings contented themselves with a few 
weeks on the coast of Maine, which suited Jessup just 


fi 90 JESSUP 

as well, since she was eager to concentrate on her work 
in order to make the best possible showing. It was her 
custom to begin work at ten in the morning, and to 
remain at her drawing board until three or four in the 
afternoon. 

Early in the morning she and Ivan often might have 
been seen together on the bridle-path in Central Park. 
It was Jessup’s first experience as a horsewoman, but 
she soon developed confidence and became very fond of 
the sport. Those were memorable and romantic hours. 
In her early, lonely days in New York, she had occa¬ 
sionally set out on solitary rambles through the park. 
On these walks the men and women in smart riding- 
habits, loping past on their horses, had seemed like 
phantom figures out of a world immeasurably remote 
from her own. Now she was one of them, and these 
exhilarating hours more than any other phase of her 
new life symbolized the changes that had occurred 
between then and now. There was a persistent roman¬ 
tic tang about the creaking leather beneath her, the 
feel of her feet against boots and stirrups, the sinewy, 
nervous power of her horse, the pounding hoof-beats, 
the smell of the stables, the morning scents of grass 
and dew and flying earth, the glistening boughs over¬ 
head. 

“Not too reckless!” protested Ivan once, overtaking 
her after an unusual burst of speed. 

“I love it,” she laughed, her cheeks flaming. 

“I know you do. But you can’t be sure of these 
hired horses. We’ve got to get a couple of our own. 


JESSUP 191 

You ride as if you were born to it. Your people must 
have been corking horsemen.” 

“They were I” she cried, and dug her heels vigor¬ 
ously into her horse’s flanks. “Come on I” 

Riding with a savage eagerness, it seemed to her at 
times that if she could only ride fast enough and hard 
enough she would be able to overtake certain tan¬ 
talizing and elusive impressions in wild flight just 
ahead of her. Riding seemed to poise her on the verge 
of almost grasping dim impressions that went uncannily 
back beyond the frontiers of her farthest memories. 

Sometimes it seemed to her that her father must 
have galloped over these identical paths. 

Frequently they rode in small troops, since numerous 
acquaintances of Ivan’s also rode. Among these was 
a Herbert Dodge, a member of one of Ivan’s clubs, 
an amiable, frivolous fellow who missed no opportunity 
to cultivate them on the bridle-path, and there was 
hardly a morning on which they rode that he did not 
join them. Whenever Jessup indulged in one of her 
bursts of speed, it was usually Dodge who was the 
first to spur his horse alongside. 

“Shall we change our riding hour?” asked Ivan one 
morning when he and Jessup were leaving the stables. 

“What for?” she asked. 

“I thought perhaps this chap Dodge was too much 
in evidence.” 

“Not at all. He seems rather good company.” 

“It seems impossible to shake him,” said Ivan. “I 
see him at the club now and then, but don’t know very 
much about him. Apparently he has money and more 


192 JESSUP 

or less leisure. I believe he does something in real 
estate. Seems to be rather well connected. Sure he 
isn’t boring you?” 

“No. He probably just hates to ride alone,” said 
Jessup sympathetically. 

“Well, I sometimes wish he would take it out on 
someone else,” complained Ivan good-naturedly. “But 
if it doesn’t bother you, of course it’s quite all right 
with me.” 

Soon afterwards, Ivan again referred to Dodge, 
but this time in a more respectful tone. 

“Our friend of the bridle-path had me to lunch 
to-day,” he began. “He has put me in touch with a 
firm of real estate operators who are likely to prove a 
valuable connection for us. I’d like to cultivate him. 
It wouldn’t do any harm to have him up for dinner.” 

“All right,” replied Jessup. 

“If it’s agreeable to you. I’ll invite him. His wife is 
abroad. Shall we ask someone else?” 

“Yes, it might be well.” 

“Who?” asked Ivan. 

“Doris?” 

“No.” 

“The gypsy?” 

“God forbid.” 

“Nan Sedley?” 

“All right. She’s a good sort. I think she and 
Dodge would like each other. There are so few 
people in town this summer.” 

Herbert Dodge proved to be an agreeable dinner 
guest. He talked engagingly about plays if not about 


193 


JESSUP 

books, told a story well, and had an apparently inex¬ 
haustible fund of narratives concerning the ingenuity 
of bootleggers. His tall, broad-chested figure was 
what Nan Sedley called “my kind,” but Jessup thought 
he paid too minute an attention to clothes. He had a 
ready smile, large languid eyes, with traces of baggi¬ 
ness under them. It seemed his policy to be in a con¬ 
tinual good humor. He talked glibly of house-parties 
on the Hudson and of week-ends on Long Island, with 
their extravagant gambling and unconcealed love af¬ 
fairs, and gave the impression of being bored with 
much gadding. He talked familiarly of the motion- 
picture crowd, seemed to know no end of social and 
theatrical gossip, and boasted of the star his money 
was responsible for. He displayed a bored familiarity 
with the gossip of the financial district, and astonished 
Banning several times with his accurate knowledge of 
the facts behind certain movements of stocks. 

He was a puzzling type to Jessup. She wondered if 
he was much of a figure socially or in business, and 
wondered whether Ivan was overestimating Dodge’s 
ability to do him good turns. But he interested her 
oddly. He had a restful, companionable effect upon 
her that was a relief after the nervous, erratic young 
intellectuals that Doris usually had in tow. 

Now and again Jessup got the impression that 
Dodge’s fluent but inconsequential talk represented 
strategy rather than a shallow mind. She wondered 
if he was concealing something, and if so, what it was. 
Occasionally she found him looking at her with an 
expression that she could not fathom. She could not 


194 JESSUP 

determine whether the look that lurked In his brooding, 
heavy-lidded eyes was one of sex or not. 

Miss Sedley was explaining why she was not abroad 
for the summer. An eminent Italian operatic coach 
was In New York, she was saying, and she had re¬ 
mained to study under him. Three or four of his pupils 
were In the Metropolitan Opera Company. 

“I’ve heard of him,” said Dodge. “What did he 
bring with him? A magic carpet of some kind?” 

“I hate you,” protested Miss Sedley. “Do you 
think It takes magic to get me Into opera?” 

“Not at all,” laughed Dodge. “I was thinking of 
his method of developing the voice.” 

“Oh, he’s adorable. It took him just three weeks 
to clear up every bit of trouble with my middle 
register.” 

Dodge turned to Jessup. “I hear you’re giving up 
the stage for costume designing.” 

“Yes, It’s so much more interesting,” said Jessup. 

“But you have a voice,” put in Miss Sedley authori¬ 
tatively. “You should go on with it.” 

“No, my singing was only a makeshift,” asserted 
Jessup. “Voice never ran in our family.” 

“No?” said Dodge. “I should have hazarded the 
guess that It did. Or is It your family that Is musical?” 
he asked, turning to Ivan. 

“Not that I ever heard of,” replied the latter. 

“My mistake,” said Dodge. “I took that for a por¬ 
trait of Canton, one of New York’s famous early voice 
teachers,” he added, nodding In the direction of the 
ancestor. 


JESSUP 195 

“No, indeed, tHat’s a Jessup,” declared Ivan, with¬ 
out observing Jessup’s sudden confusion. 

“Ah, that explains it,” returned Dodge. “I mis¬ 
took it for Canton, and assumed that he had been 
either a member of the family or that someone in the 
family had been his pupil.” 

“Canton?” repeated Banning. “It seems to me 
that I’ve heard of Canton.” 

“You must have. He was quite a celebrated teacher 
in his day,” declared Dodge. “But really Mrs. Ban¬ 
ning should go on with her voice. I quite agree with! 
Miss Sedley.” 

Crateful for an excuse to show confusion, Jessup 
said: “You embarrass me. My appearance in musical 
comedy was more or less of an accident, and it’s a great 
relief to me to be out of it, I can assure you.” 

“But you were a hit!” insisted Dodge with enthu¬ 
siasm. 

Much to Jessup’s relief, when their guests had gone,"" 
Banning did not refer to Dodge’s comments con9ern-“ 
ing the portrait. But in speaking of Dodge, she could 
not resist the impulse to question and discredit him. 

“He seems to be a very shallow sort of individual,” 
she said when Ivan mentioned him. 

“Then you don’t like him?” he asked. 

“Oh, he’s all right, but not particularly burdened 
with any mentality. What I can’t understand is how a 
man of that caliber manages to make his way In busi¬ 
ness.” 

“By being well and favorably known by a lot of 
people, and by bringing demand and supply together. 


196 JESSUP 

He is probably an excellent salesman,” replied Banning. 

“He seems like a great big boy,” said Jessup. “Ex¬ 
cept that he has the capacity of a veritable old woman 
for gossip.” 

Banning laughed. “You’ve described him. But he 
has one thing more—back of his genial superficiality, 
he doubtless has a shrewd flair for playing politics.” 

“Politics?” 

“Business politics. It is just that type of affable 
loafer that frequently possesses a perfectly uncanny 
technique at what we call tunnel-work.” 

“What is tunnel-work?” inquired Jessup with in¬ 
terest. 

“It’s the art of patiently digging one’s way into a 
position to accomplish difficult business transactions. 
There’s a disarming easy-going quality about him that 
makes one like to have him about. He’s restful. He 
doesn’t talk shop. He doesn’t allow himself to be 
suspected of knowing too much. I’m more convinced 
than ever that he is worth cultivating. He’s nobody’s 
fool.” 

“I don’t quite know whether I trust him or not,” 
answered Jessup thoughtfully. 

“Well, he can’t do me any harm, and he may be 
able to do me some good. I’m going to play along 
with him for a while, and see what comes of it. If 
he’ s in a position to throw any business our way, the 
firm will make it worth his while. Whether you like 
him or not, try to be cordial.” 

One afternoon about the middle of September, when 


JESSUP 197 

Banning was in Chicago attending a convention, Dodge 
telephoned. 

“YouVe become quite a stranger,” said Jessup. 
“Aren’t you riding any more?” 

“Oh, my horse sprained his knee, and I’ve been 
away a good deal, and disgustingly busy. I’m wonder¬ 
ing If you and Mr. Banning can’t dine with me to-night. 
I have some news that I think will Interest your good 
husband.” 

“Mr. Banning Is out of town for a few days.” 

“That’s too bad. Then why don’t you have dinner 
with me? Any place you say.” 

“Unfortunately I already have a dinner appoint¬ 
ment.” 

“Then have tea with me.” 

“That sounds tempting.” 

“Let me see. It Is now four o’clock. Suppose we 
meet at the Blltmore at a quarter of five. Right-o?” 

Jessup had been at her drawing-board for fully four 
hours, and was tired. She was In a mood for relaxa¬ 
tion, and the prospect of a dance or two with Dodge 
was not unwelcome. She found the lobby of the popu¬ 
lar meeting-place filled with Its usual afternoon crowd 
of men and women, most of them young. Languid 
youths and pretty girls, many of them merely pretend¬ 
ing to have appointments, were strolling to and fro 
over the thick rugs, trailing Interested looks from 
expectant eyes. The throb of jazz was In the air. On 
the velvet benches sat scores of waiting women Inspect¬ 
ing the passers-by. 


198 JESSUP 

Dodge was standing decorously near the desk. He 
greeted Jessup warmly. 

“Charming of you to come,’’ he said. “The only 
thing I hold against you is that dinner engagement of 
yours. Still, we shall have an hour or so. It’s con¬ 
siderate of Banning to be away.” 

Jessup paid little heed to his patter. 

“You dance as well as you ride,” he said as they 
swung out on the floor together. “I was sure you 
would. How long is that husband of yours going to 
be gone?” he asked cozily. 

“Oh, for a day or two.” 

“I hope that convention gets deadlocked and lasts 
for a month,” he declared with playful fervor. 

\ “I thought you had forgotten all about us,” she 
said lightly. 

He answered seriously: “I’ve tried mighty hard to 
keep you off my mind.” 

“Sorry to have put you to such an effort.” 

“It was a struggle. I gave up horseback on account 
of It.” 

“Oh, I thought your horse sprained his knee.” 

“Yes, just In time to bring me to my senses and to 
keep me from continuing to make a pest of myself.” 

“But you didn’t.” 

“It’s charitable of you to say so,” he replied. 

The music stopped. He seated Jessup with a flour¬ 
ish, and drew his chair close to hers. 

‘How Is your wife enjoying herself abroad?” asked 
Jessup. 

“First-rate.” 


" JESSUP ’ :i99 

“I hope to meet her when she gets back.’’ 

“You shall. She’s a very attractive woman. But 
we’re not going to talk about her this afternoon. Our 
time together is too short,” declared Dodge decisively. 

There was a significant note in his statement. Jes¬ 
sup foresaw that he was going to be sentimental. The 
look in his large gray eyes beneath their drooping lids 
was unmistakable. 

She remembered that Banning had begged her to be 
cordial. 

“At last we have a chance to talk about ourselves,” 
he said, the former note of playfulness no longer in 
his voice. 

“There have been \plenty of chances for that,” was 
Jessup’s matter-of-fact reply. 

“No, there haven’t. We’ve never been alone. So I 
didn’t make a nuisance of myself in the park? I’ll 
bet Banning thought so.” 

“Not in the least.” 

“You were the most romantic-looking creature I 
ever saw in a saddle.” 

“It must have been your own romantic mood that 
made you think so.” 

“Every time I see you I’m plunged into a romantic 
mood.” 

“What a confession for a staid and stodgy business 
man to make!” railed Jessup. 

“I don’t know that I’m so staid and stodgy. Do I 
strike you that way? Does one have to be a kid of 
twenty to fall in love?” 

“You’re not in love,” said Jessup derisively. 


200’ JESSUP, 

“Oh, I’m not? Then how would you describe it?” 

“You’re just in need of amusement. And doubtless 
it entertains you to deliver an outburst of this kind to 
a woman who has been married for only six months.” 

“Don’t remind me that you’re married,” begged 
Dodge. “But even if you are, it makes no difference 
to me.” 

“I suppose it only makes you feel safer to be reck¬ 
less,” was Jessup’s amused reply. 

“What’s reckless about it?” asked Dodge petulantly. 
“I tell you I’m indifferent to anything and everything 
but you.” 

“What flattering intensity,” said Jessup, imitating 
his tone. 

“I don’t imagine that Ivan Banning’s intensity would 
start much of a blaze,” replied the other. “He doesn’t 
know how to love you.” 

“Oh, dear, no! You’re the only man in New York 
who knows how to love a woman!” chaffed Jessup. 

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. But you’ll find 
out that you can’t laugh me out of the way. I never 
knew anyone who affected me the way you do.” 

“I’m afraid you’re very delicately constituted. Do 
you see that girl over there in asparagus green?” 

“Which one?” 

“The one with the elderly man who keeps pulling so 
nervously at his mustache. She’s been trying to flirt 
with you ever since we came in. Why don’t you smile 
at her and save the day for her?” 
k. “She makes me sick.” 

“She seems just your kind. There’s something wild 


201 


JESSUP 

ajid barbaric about her. Look at those earrings. All 
she needs is a ring in her nose. I know she’d appreciate 
an ardor like yours. You should at least exchange 
telephone numbers with her.” 

“What the devil would I want with her telephone 
number? I can’t see her at all. Do I look as if I’d 
be interested in every woman?” 

“You look like an affable middle-aged business man 
devoted to his family, although it is in Europe. I 
should never have suspected how sentimental you are. 
Does tea always excite you?” 

“Do you call forty-two middle-aged?” inquired 
Dodge testily. 

The music began, and again they moved out among 
the dancers. While Jessup had derived considerable 
enjoyment from her companion’s unexpected outburst, 
she regretted on Ivan’s account that he had shown 
these symptoms. 

“My heart bleeds for that girl in green,” remarked 
Jessup as they swung past her. 

“The hell with the girl in green,” growled Dodge. 

“But it is such a pity that all this you are telling 
me should be wasted on one so unresponsive,” lamented 
Jessup. 

“You wait,” answered Dodge fervidly. 

“You interest me,” said Jessup when they were 
seated again. “What if I were an irresponsible young 
thing, and if my head were easily turned, and if I did 
respond? And if, when your wife came back and my 
husband came back, they found everything in a mess? 
Then what?” 


202 JESSUP 

“Things would have to take their own course,” re¬ 
plied Dodge. 

“That’s all very vague. Do you mean the usual 
domestic smash-up?” 

“I don’t know that it would necessarily have to 
come to that. When someone’s foot happens to slip, 
it doesn’t mean that all concerned immediately have 
to rush into cou.^t about it, does it?” asked Dodge, 
unperturbed. 

“Do you consider that Mr. Banning would be dis¬ 
posed to stand calmly by in case my foot, as you call 
it, slipped?” asked Jessup. 

“I ^on’t see how he can expect you to devote your¬ 
self exclusively to him for all time. The other is 
bound to happen some time. Is it good sense to wait 
until you’re forty or fifty?” 

“What about Mrs. Dodge?” asked Jessup with an 
irresistible curiosity concerning this man’s code of con¬ 
duct. “Do you permit her all that freedom?” 

“Could I stop it?” 

“What I mean is, do you allow her to have her 
affairs?” 

“I don’t know what she does. I don’t spy on her.” 

“You mean you don’t care what she does.” 

,“That’s her own business, not mine.” 

“But surely she doesn’t suspect you of being as im¬ 
pressionable as you are?” 

“She’s never had occasion to raise the question.” 

“You can’t care very much for her.” 

“I admire her very much. As for being desperately 
in love with her, no, of course I’m not.” 


JESSUP 203 

“And you assume that Mr. Banning will also reach 
that stage!” 

“I don’t know that he will. You’re different. You 
will hold him a good deal longer than he’ll ever hold 
you. You’re too adorable for a man to lose interest 
in you.” 

“After what you’ve just told me, how do I know 
that he isn’t having his affairs right now? How do I 
even know that he went to Chicago?” 

“He went to Chicago all right. I can vouch for 
that. He wired me from there this afternoon.” 

Jessup gave him a look of surprise. 

“So you knew he was out of town when you tele¬ 
phoned?” she demanded. 

“Certainly I knew it. 
said Dodge 


That’s why I telephoned,” 


CHAPTER XVI 


“You never can tell what a casual bridle-path 
acquaintance is going to develop into,” declared Ban¬ 
ning soon after his return from Chicago. 

Jessup waited uncomfortably for him to continue; 
she wondered whether he had any knowledge of Her¬ 
bert Dodge’s attentions to her. 

“Remember the way Dodge used to bob up almost 
every time we went for a ride?” Banning continued. 

“Yes, you thought he was an awful bore.” 

“I was afraid he was boring you. However, he has 
proved himself anything but that.” 

Again Jessup waited. She was by no means able 
to determine what her husband was getting at. 

“I exchanged a number of wires with him while I 
was away,” he added. 

“You did?” asked Jessup, showing less interest than 
she felt. 

“About our conspiracy to induce the Hauser Realty 
Company to change architects.” 

“Oh, yes. Anything new on that?” 

“It begins to look promising. The Hauser concern 
has decided not to retain Its former architects on Its 
proposed Park Avenue apartment houses. Dodge 
wired me to that effect. There’s an Item here in The 





JESSUP 205 

American Architect confirming wKat he said. I think 
we’re going to get the contract. If it goes through it 
will be due to nice work on Dodge’s part.” 

“What was his object?” 

“For one thing, we’ll make it worth his while, of 
course, for having brought us in touch with the Haus¬ 
ers. They’re very large operators, and do a whale of 
a lot of building.” 

“You mean you will pay Mr. Dodge a commission?” 

“Exactly.” 

“Wouldn’t other architects pay him if he did the 
same for them?” 

“Naturally,” said Banning. “On the other hand,” 
he added, stroking his chin complacently, “he is very 
strongly sold on our firm, and is convinced that we 
can render a far better service than most competing 
houses. Then, too, there’s the element of friend¬ 
ship.” 

“Yes, I’ve noticed that you and Mr. Dodge seem 
to have grown quite fond of each other.” 

“I like him very much.” 

“Do you think he’s trustworthy?” asked Jessup. 

“I can’t see any reason to think otherwise. It seems 
to me you mentioned something like that once before,” 
said Banning questioningly. 

“Did I?” 

“Yes, the first time he was here. Right after he had 
gone you expressed some sort of doubt about him. 

What makes you wonder?” 

“For all his big talk, he seems to be a sort of social 

nobody, doesn’t he?” 


2o6 JESSUP 

“OH, he has the salesman’s temperament. They all 
do a lot of talking.” 

“His wife gets back soon, doesn’t she?” 

“Yes, I believe so. We must have them up and 
meet her.” 

“I should like to. By the way, I meant to tell you 
that Mr. Dodge called up while you were away and 
asked us to dinner,” said Jessup. 

“I hope you went. I don’t want you to make a re¬ 
cluse of yourself when I’m compelled to be out of 
town.” 

“I couldn’t go to dinner. But I went to tea^ with' 
him.” 

“Fine. Where did you go?” 

“Biltmore. We had a couple of dances.” 

“I’m glad you’re hitting it off so well together.” 

“I don’t know that we’re hitting it off so well to¬ 
gether,” returned Jessup indifferently. “I remem¬ 
bered that you wanted me to be cordial, that’s all.” 

“Well, it won’t do any harm. You’ll find that busi¬ 
ness isn’t conducted entirely in the office, and that the 
right sort of friendly relations on the part of a man’s 
wife are a fine thing.” 

Jessup smiled disparagingly. “I shouldn’t like to 
feel that your progress in business depended upon my 
ability to keep a string of men in a good humor. That’s 
hardly my idea of keeping myself occupied.” 

“That isn’t what I mean, Diana. I know you’re 
extremely busy with your drawing, and that a lot of my 
business associates may be socially impossible. What 
I mean to say is that when it isn’t inconvenient or dis- 


JESSUP 207 

tasteful for you to be nice to some of these men, your 
influence may often provide just the extra weight nec¬ 
essary to shove an important deal through. You have 
an unusual personality. And having been on the stage 
makes you just that much more of a personage. All 
of which helps.” 

Jessup smiled at the gullibility of men. It was ap¬ 
parent to her that Ivan knew nothing of Dodge’s spec¬ 
tacular display of interest in her. She was accustomed 
to the fantastic freedom among theatrical men in these 
matters. One expected it on Broadway. But she had 
somehow grown accustomed to thinking of business as 
a world apart, and of its men as being differently con¬ 
stituted. She had regarded Salant as somewhere 
above men’s average level of conduct in theatrical cir¬ 
cles, and Ivan as somewhere above the average level in 
business circles, but had assumed that these two were 
fair exemplars of the codes of their respective classes. 
It had never occurred to her that the freedom of the¬ 
atrical life might have its counterpart in business life. 
She knew in a vague way that there was throat-slash¬ 
ing competition among business men, that battles raged 
over the heads of rich women, and that even in families 
of high standing, wives sometimes became entangled 
with other women’s husbands, and husbands with other 
men’s wives, as a result of which there were scandals, 
separations, divorces, and occasional shootings. But 
she thought of these as the exceptions, not the rule— 
as the dissonances among the prevailing harmonies of 
an established respect for one another’s rights and pos¬ 
sessions. In short, she had seen the business world 


(2o8 JESSUP 

i 

thVougK a kind of glamour; she had realized Its codes 
and traditions; and she had accepted Ivan’s associates 
on these terms. 

Her experience with Dodge had left her disturbed 
and doubtful. Her first reaction to his overtures had 
been a surprised amusement. His frank admission 
that he was taking advantage of Banning’s absence to 
give rein to his sentimentality had confirmed her earlier 
impressions that he was essentially superficial and more¬ 
over that he could not be trusted. That Dodge was 
flighty, was of no moment; but that he was deceptive 
was a matter of concern to Jessup; It made her realize 
that Ivan should be warned against possible treachery 
at the hands of Dodge In their business relations. 

During the autumn they saw Dodge at dinners from 
time to time. In Ivan’s presence he Invariably affected 
the same bland, casual ennui; but whenever he found 
himself alone with Jessup, If even for only a moment, 
the Indifferent eyes would smolder beneath their heavy 
lids, and he would lose no time In addressing whispered 
phrases to her. But the moment Banning returned. 
Dodge would revert to his former manner of appar¬ 
ent Indifference. 

Once, unable to keep quiet any longer, yet uncertain 
as to how to proceed, Jessup made an Impulsive effort 
to put Ivan on guard against Dodge. 

“I keep worrying about your dealings with Dodge,” 
she began. 

Ivan laughed. “You may be sure that there Isn’t 
a thing to worry about,” he answered promptly. 
“What are you disturbed about?” 


209 


JESSUP 

“I don’t know. But I don’t seem to trust him.” 

“you haven’t seen him cheat at bridge, have you?” 
asked Ivan banteringly. 

“No, but he would doubtless be too shrewd for any¬ 
thing so obvious as that,” replied Jessup, nettled at 
the question. 

“Then what is it? Just intuition?” 

“Perhaps,” said Jessup evasively. 

“Do people gossip about him? If you know any¬ 
thing choice, tell me,” returned Ivan. 

“No, I don’t believe I know any gossip, either choice 
or banal. Still, he is undoubtedly a roue.” 

“What makes you think so?” 

“He has a sensual expression in his eyes.” 

“It’s quite possible that he likes women. A good 
many men do. There’s nothing so unusual about that, 
is there?” 

“His weakness for women isn’t of the slightest in¬ 
terest to me. He can have a harem if he likes. But 
I should hate to see him mislead you in business mat¬ 
ters.” 

“Not a chance,” smiled Ivan. 

“I don’t think he can be a particle of use to you. 
You’re only wasting your time.” 

“I don’t think I am,” was the complacent reply. 

“You’ll find that he’s deceitful. I wouldn’t trust 
him too far myself.” 

“Why wouldn’t you? Has he done anything or 
said anything that leads you to distrust him?” 

“Oh, he’s just a big bluff. I’m sure of it,” said 
Jessup, unwilling to say more. 


.2IQ JESSUP 

Ivaii looked at her contentedly and replied: “Pm 
going to tell you something.” 

“Nothing that you could tell me about him would 
surprise me,” answered Jessup, impatient at Ivan’s 
comfortable tone. 

“This will. We signed a large and favorable con¬ 
tract to-day with the Hauser people. We could never 
have done it in the world without him. I was just on 
the point of telling you when you started in. This 
contract is something that we can be mighty grateful 
for. It is bound to open the door to a number of 
other accounts that any architect would be glad to get.” 

“I’m very glad I was mistaken,” answered Jessup. 

“For once your hunch was all wrong, dear.” 

But Jessup, far from being reassured, was aware of 
a heightened uneasiness. Having felt a deep convic¬ 
tion that Dodge’s representations in the Hauser mat¬ 
ter were only a pretense designed to give his relations 
with Ivan and herself the air of an authentic friend¬ 
ship, the discovery of her mistake, instead of reas¬ 
suring her, now tinged her with even deeper misgiv¬ 
ings. She seemed aware of a sneaking motive in 
Dodge’s tactics. Several times during the past week 
he had telephoned, making petulant requests that she 
join him at tea. Only this afternoon he had telephoned 
again, urging her to let him call, repeating the old 
phrases. 

Could it be, she wondered, that Dodge had sought 
this means of ingratiating himself with Ivan against 
possible discovery of his pursuit of herself? Could 
Dodge’s thoughts have taken so puerile a course? Or, 


JESSUP 2Ti 

she vwondered, having done her husband a valuable 
turn, by which she herself would profit, did Dodge as¬ 
sume that she would submit to his attentions and yield 
to S: surreptitious liaison ? 

The more she debated the question, the more she 
was inclined to credit these suppositions. It disgusted 
her to suspect that she had actually figured in so sor¬ 
did a line of reasoning. It made her question the 
attitude that the men of Ivan’s acquaintance must be 
holding toward her. She wondered what men saw in 
her to start the crude machinery of such reasoning. 
Did they sense something inherently inferior about her? 
Would such grotesque fancies ever present themselves 
in connection with the wives of other men of the group? 
It was inconceivable to her that Mrs. Murray or Mrs. 
Cooper, the wives of Ivan’s partners, could possibly 
figure in such reasoning on the part of Dodge or any¬ 
one else. 

A dark suspicion crossed the path of her thoughts 
and swept her like a storm-cloud. Had her origin 
left its mark upon her? Were men drawn to her by 
some subtle atmospheric taint foreign to other women? 
Did they receive telepathic, involuntary intimations 
concerning the red twilight from which she had issued? 

Her questionings gave way to a sudden loathing, to 
a silent inarticulate fury in which her spirit raged. 
She hated life and the lust by which it was hurled on 
its course. 

From the courtyard below came an abrupt wail of 
a cat, a continuous yowling broken only by brief pauses. 


J2T2 JESSUP 

It plerceH tHe smoky twilight in excruciating cries. 
Presently it ceased and to Jessup’s sensitive ears came 
the faintest meow. 

Jessup crossed to the window, listening to the alter¬ 
nating cries of anguish of the unseen cat giving birth 
to her kittens. She could picture her, alone in her tor¬ 
ture, while the paternal tom-cat, indifferent to what 
was happening, and inflamed with a new desire, was 
doubtless chasing another mate along back fences. 
There was a final, air-splitting shriek, and the last of 
the litter must have been delivered, for now the lis¬ 
tener could hear a moaning purr mingling with the 
fragile sounds from new throats. 

As she listened, Jessup’s fury had passed, giving 
way to pity for the stray animal in the darkness below, 
torn by the mysterious pain of giving birth to her 
young. It wa3 the most vivid impression she had ever 
had of the process of birth, and it filled her with a 
singular sense of awe. 

She went to the telephone, vaguely conscious that the 
bell was ringing. Dodge was calling. He was down¬ 
stairs in the lobby. He begged permission to run up 
for a few minutes. Jessup told him to come. 

A look of cool and sardonic amusement was in Jes¬ 
sup’s eyes when he entered. 

“I simply had to have a glimpse of you,” began 
Dodge with his customary fervor. 

“My nerves are in a frazzle and I must look like a 
:wreck,” said Jessup wearily. 

“You show no signs of it. But if that’s the way 


JESSUP. 213 

you feel, then I’m just in time to cheer you up.” Dodge 
laid aside his hat, stick, gloves, and coat, without wait¬ 
ing for an invitation to do so. 

“I don’t want to be cheered up,” replied Jessup in¬ 
differently. 

“You are in a bad humor.” Dodge started toward 
her. 

“I feel vicious. Keep away,” she returned, waving 
him back. 

“What’s up?” 

In measured and impatient tones, Jessup asked: 
“How often do I have to tell you not to run in here 
when I’m alone?” 

“How was I to know that you were alone? How; 
did I know that Banning wasn’t here?” 

“My husband is never here this time of the day. 
He works.” 

“Yes, I understand that he is rather busy just now, 
having added the Hausers to his list,of clients,” re¬ 
turned Dodge affably. 

But Jessup chose to ignore the significance of his 
dig. She replied: “You manage to keep yourself 
well-informed as to his affairs.” 

“I was glad to have been able to throw a piece of 
business his way,” said Dodge. 

Jessup studied her guest curiously for a moment. 
“Just what was your object in doing so?” she asked. 

“Do you want me to tell you?” 

“Yes, I should like very much to know.” 

“All right. I did it because I thought you would 


214 JESSUP 

appreciate it. Banning isn’t anything to me, you 
loiow.” 

Jessup frowned. “Oh, so that’s it?” 

“Yes, that’s what it amounts to, since you ask,” said 
Dodge with entire assurance. 

“Do you think that’s fair?” asked Jessup with re¬ 
newed curiosity to fathom the mental processes of the 
other. 

“Why isn’t it? He gets business that he couldn’t 
have touched with a ten-foot pole before I stepped in 
and showed him how.” ' 

“I hardly think he is so badly in need of business as 
all that,” replied Jessup, restraining the fury that was 
welling up in her. 

Dodge, gazing at her, misinterpreted the glistening 
look in her eyes. “You do care for me a little, don’t 
you?” he asked. 

“No, I don’t. Why in heaven’s name should I love 
you?” 

“You are absolutely arctic. You’re full of the devil 
to-day. The more you resist, the more determined I 
am to have you.” 

“Such a hero,” scoffed Jessup. 

“I would have found you no matter where you 
were,” continued Dodge with increasing fervor. 
“Nothing could have kept me away from you. If 
necessary, I would have followed you through the 
streets.” 

“Yes, I can see how you would. I dare say you fol¬ 
low a good many women through the streets,” said 
Jessup. 


215 


JESSUP 

Dodge’s freshly-massaged face flushed. “I’m sorry 
you have so low an opinion of me. I have told you 
again and again that I never look twice at any other 
women. Can’t you believe me?” 

“Certainly you can’t expect me to.” 

“Why is it that you won’t believe anything I say?” 
demanded Dodge fretfully. “Believe anything else 
that you like, but please believe in my sincerity toward 
you.” 

“It’s impossible.” 

“Why should it be impossible?” 

“Because I’m not that stupid, and because you’ve 
played too mean a trick on Ivan.” 

“If Banning can’t hold you, that’s his lookout, not 
mine,” was the imperturbable reply. “I don’t consider 
that I’m damaging him. I don’t see it that way at 
all. Sooner or later you’re sure to lose interest in 
him. It’s inevitable. Women don’t stick to one man 
forever these days.” 

A sudden sternness entered Jessup’s eyes. “I’d like 
to ask you something,” she said. “I’d like to know 
what there is about me that makes you presume to 
adopt this attitude?” 

“Your irresistible fascination.” 

“Humph. There are plenty of women in New York 
whom you might find irresistibly fascinating, but to 
whom you wouldn’t dare talk in these terms,” contin¬ 
ued Jessup. “I confess that you have roused my curi¬ 
osity. I want to know just what it is that gave you the 
impression that you could walk calmly In here and 


2i6 JESSUP 

make love to me. Do you consider me on so low a 
level?” 

“No, I consider you on a very high level. You have 
talent; you have genius.” 

Jessup answered in contempt: “What do you know 
about talent? Or about genius?” 

Ignoring her tone, Dodge replied: “You have an 
intellect. You are stimulating. You’re so far above 
the idle chatter of other women that there’s no com¬ 
parison.” 

“What do you know about intellect? Your mind is 
constantly on fool sentiments and sex,” said Jessup 
scornfully. 

As she looked at the soft, pampered face of her vis¬ 
itor, a sudden impatience at the waste of time in talking 
to him rolled through her. She felt physically and 
mentally sick of his bleating talk. She had often stud¬ 
ied him, wondering what he reminded her of. She 
knew now, he looked like a sheep. The readiness of 
this social nobody to step in and if possible to wreck 
the whole structure of the social background she had 
laboriously fashioned at last into solidity, flooded her 
with resentment. What if she had been moved by 
his flattery, and if in a careless and unguarded moment 
she had amused herself with this persistent wooer? 
She was grateful that he had always disgusted her. In 
order to terminate the fruitless dialogue, Jessup rose 
and yawned. 

But the sight of her yawn seemed to ignite her vis¬ 
itor into a sudden passion for mastery. Instantly he 
was on his feet. With the litheness of an animal he 


JESSUP 21^ 

made a glide toward her, and surrounded Her with 
bearlike arms. " 

With a furious movement Jessup averted her face, 
and drove her pointed fingers into his arms in a' spir¬ 
ited effort to break his hold. 

“God, you’re strong!” he panted, fighting her. 

“Look out! You’re tearing my dress!” she ex¬ 
claimed. 

“Then quit fighting me. I’ve got to have you,” hd 
said heavily. “Give In to me! Give In to me!” 

She caught his eye on the tip of a look of derision, 
and kept It fixed upon him until by degrees his grasp 
relaxed. 

“Why don’t you care for me?” he complained. 
“Here I am, head over heels In love with you, and you 
do nothing but resist me. Why, most women' would 
jump at the chance. I’m not a nobody, you know. I 
belong to one of the old families. I was considered 
at one time one of the best-dressed men In New York 
City. I belong to the Union League Club, the Uni¬ 
versity, the Yacht Club, and the Society of the Cin¬ 
cinnati.” 

“And where do you bank?” asked Jessup. 

“Why the bank?” 

“Just to make your credit references complete.” 

Jessup was seated on the couch, and suddenly Dodge 
dropped on his knees before her. 

“Oh, such homage!” she exclaimed. “On your 

knees?” 

“Yes, and you’re the first woman I ever got down on 


JESSUP 

my knees to. I never did this before in my life. 
You’ve got to take me seriously. What else can I do 
to convince you that I care for you? Can’t you see? 
How can I prove it?” 

“Why, just bray like an ass and make the picture 
complete,” said Jessup. “I’m sorry. That was un¬ 
kind. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know, after 
all, men like you aren’t so bad; and if women aren’t 
fooled by your ardor, you really serve a good purpose. 
It’s a game with you, just as it’s a game with us. It’s 
all very well to have the fun of it. If she doesn’t 
weaken, it’s a great sport. But the trouble with men 
of your kind is that you’re apt to be convincing—and 
if that happens there’s nothing left for her to do but 
shoot herself or turn on the gas, and as I don’t care 
to exit just yet. I’ll fix my hair and call it a bully after¬ 
noon.” 

“I could make you love me-” began Dodge. 

“Ha, love you?” laughed Jessup. “That’s the last 
thing in the world I want to do. That’s not my idea 
of peace.” 

Dodge gave her a reproachful look. 

“Are you trying to make a fool of me?” he de¬ 
manded. 

“No, but I’m afraid you’re rapidly making one of 
yourself. And really. I’m very tired.” 

When the door closed behind Herbert Dodge, it was 
not the hurt, malicious quality of his parting expression 
that lingered in Jessup’s mind, but regret that she had 
to humiliate him so severely. She fancied, however. 



JESSUP 219' 

that the ludicrous pantomime of Dodge on his knees 
had fully served the purpose of ridding herself of him. 

Aware of the nervous energy she had expended in 
coping with him, she went to her studio and sank into 
a chair. Dreamily she surrendered herself to reveries, 
and to a happy contemplation of the labors in which 
she was engaged and of the tranquil security of her life 
with Ivan. How considerate he was, she mused, com¬ 
pared with Salant and Dodge and others that moved 
past her in a hazy procession. Rare good fortune had 
attended her in her gamble with marriage. Her occa¬ 
sional misgivings concerning Ivan had, after all, been 
unwarranted. He was undeniably devoted to her, and 
was precisely the type she had dreamed of marrying, 
while scarcely hoping to be able to. A sense of warmth 
and peacefulness crept over her like the spell of a 
soothing drug. 

She sat waiting for him in the subdued lamplight 
with a strange and eager expectancy. 



CHAPTER XVII 


An impressive hush brooded as usual over the execu¬ 
tive offices of the firm of Murray, Cooper & Banning. 
It was on an afternoon in December, and Jessup, while 
on an errand in the neighborhood of the Architects’ 
Building on Park Avenue, having discovered that she 
had mislaid her key to their apartment, had run in to 
get Ivan’s. Banning was engaged in a long-distance 
telephone conversation when she arrived, and she was 
asked to wait for him in the conference room. He was 
talking to someone in St. Louis. 

Her first impressions of the firm’s offices had re¬ 
mained in Jessup’s mind, and to-day she was aware of 
the same artistic distinction that she had felt more than 
a year ago when Ivan had first shown her the estab¬ 
lishment. The somber tint of the plastered walls, the 
deep blue rug, the solid Jacobean table and chairs and 
cabinets seemed to belong to a remote and important 
world and to connote secrets of beauty incomparably 
above the tinsel of the theater and the evanescence of 
its trappings. There was a solemn air here that in¬ 
voked visions of lofty spires and domes, of arches and 
monoliths, of the heroic Alexandrian swing of bridges 
and the frozen beauty of terraces and broad stairs. 
A strengthening sense of security and faith surrounded 
and pervaded her every time she stood in this room. 


220 


221 


JESSUP 

There was an austerity about it that had something of 
the undying qualities of Greece and Rome and the Italy 
of the Renaissance. That a tawdry individual like 
Herbert Dodge could possibly figure in the transactions; 
of this office seemed grotesque and ridiculous to her. 

Creamy, fascinating prints of sketches for museums, 
libraries, post offices, churches, and apartment houses 
hung in frames on the walls. There was a sketch in 
color of the forecourt of one of Murray’s city plans. 
There were white plaster models of several of the firm’s 
projects. On the table were thick copies of various 
periodicals— Architecture, The Architectural Forum, 
The Architectural Record, and The American Archie 
tect, 

Jessup stood at the window, more than a dozen 
stories up, and gazed at the thicket of slender build¬ 
ings, some of which rose with the eagerness of rockets 
from the earth, and down at the narrow streams of 
motors on the streets. She was proud of Ivan. Shd 
could scarcely realize that her destinies and his were 
bound together. Her thoughts went back through the 
years to the house of the Helmans, to her bedroom 
under the rafters, to the disclosure on the final night 
of her life there, and it seemed to her now like the 
faintest of echoes from a previous existence, wrapped 
in unreality. 

The door of the conference room opened, and Ivan 
came toward her. 

“You won’t mind if I don’t linger, will you?” he 
asked abruptly. “I’m in a bad jam to-day. There’s a 
hospital commission from Michigan due here in ten 


222 


JESSUP 

minutes. Murray wants me to sit in. I may be tied 
up for dinner. I’ll telephone you if I am. Here’s 
your key.” 

Banning’s nervous, preoccupied manner was disturb¬ 
ing to Jessup. “I’m sorry to have interrupted. I 
can’t imagine what happened to my key,” she explained. 

“It’s perfectly all right,” he said with the same 
abruptness. 

“I’ve been doing a little Christmas shopping,” she 
added. 

“Good.” 

There was an unnatural indifference in his terse re¬ 
sponse. She said: “Please don’t overwork. You 
look tired out.” 

“I’m all right. Don’t bother about me,” he an¬ 
swered. 

He went to the elevator with her and bowed gravely 
as she entered the cage and was plunged out of sight. 

With suave authority, Daniel J. Murray, senior 
member of the firm, received the delegation from 
Michigan, introduced his associates, and began the 
presentation of his plans for the hospital. Murray 
had an air of eminence; he moved with lambent ease 
among his sketches, prints, and other exhibits; his 
.phrasing was mobile. Knowing the limitations of his 
clients, he showed them beautiful and impressive 
sketches and meticulous models instead of engineering 
blue-prints. He had schooled himself in the art of 
driving a glowing impression of the finished structure 
into the minds of laymen, most of whom, as he put it. 


JESSUP 223 

“didn’t know a column from a sewer pipe.” He could 
talk to them of classical beauty in terms that were fa- 
imiliar to them, and could convey to them a sense of 
the splendor of its chaste lines and singing curves. 
It was as though he took their stiff, unused imagina- 
‘tions into his restless hands and kneaded them into a 
consistency that he could work with. 

“You see, gentlemen,” he was saying with rapid en¬ 
thusiasm in a voice characterized by a genteel, sonorous 
gruffness, “what I’ve done here is to capitalize a nat¬ 
ural setting of trees and hillside instead of trying to 
kill it. I am showing you not only how to present a 
beautiful hospital to your community, but how to 
utilize and glorify a section of your town that is now 
a neglected dump-heap. Instead of offering you a 
structure that will stick out like a sore thumb, I am 
proposing a group correctly keyed to harmonize with 
those fine old oaks and those hills of yours. In other 
words, instead of trying to show you what a smart 
fellow I am, and plastering the place with Coney Island 
stuff, I’ve taken my cue from God Almighty. A hun¬ 
dred years from now those hills are still going to be 
right there, and the hospital group as I’m showing it 
to you here, massed low like this, and this, and this, 
against the base of the hill, will never be out of har¬ 
mony. You won’t have to tear it down in forty or 
fifty years because it doesn’t match the kind of a city 
you will have by that time, or because you^need some¬ 
thing bigger. All you’ll have to do is to add other 
buildings to your group, all tied together by my cen¬ 
tral plaza and formal parking.” 


'224 JESSUP 

With his little finger, the architect was indicating 
different parts of his sketches, the middle-westerners 
following his rhythmic movements with fascinated at¬ 
tention. 

“You see,” broke in the practical B. F. Cooper, “in¬ 
stead of simply building you a hospital, we’re making 
that junk-pile out there the finest darn spot in the city. 
It’s no good now for anything but tenements and shan¬ 
ties, but as soon as this news leaks out, they’ll be bid¬ 
ding on all that property and they’ll start putting up 
real homes where they’ll have something to look at.” 

“Exactly,” resumed Murray. “Architecture,” he 
generalized, “no longer concerns itself with the prob¬ 
lem of a single detached building but with its potential 
effect upon the whole community. I won’t live to see 
the completion of the plan in all its details. Neither 
will any of us here. But what we’re working toward 
is a plan that will meet the requirements of generations 
to come, instead of slapping something up in a hurry 
for just the needs of the immediate future.” 

Ivan Banning was a silent listener to the recital of 
his colleagues. His brooding thoughts were remote 
from Michigan and remote from this conference. His 
attentive manner gave no hint of the gloom that filled 
him. When the consultation broke up and he pleas¬ 
antly bade the firm’s clients good-by, it was an effort 
for him to smile. 

Left alone in the conference room, he stood staring- 
out over the darkened city. He thrust his hands de¬ 
jectedly into his pockets. His shoulders sagged under 


JESSUP 225 

an agonizing load. In a murky daze his thoughts re¬ 
volved round a fixed idea. . . . He recalled that 
Jessup had been in this room with him an hour or two 
ago. It seemed that she was locked out of the apart¬ 
ment and she had come to get his key. The mernory 
of it sent a bitter smile flickering to his lips. 

Murray came briskly in. 

“Well, Banning, it looks as if we had persuaded our 
friends to go ahead,” he began, stroking the short, 
pointed beard that made a vertical path down his solid 
chin. 

“It looks that way,” murmured Banning, striving to 
display some interest. 

“You and I may have to go to Michigan for a few 
days,” continued Murray. 

“It would be a relief to go anywhere!” 

Caught by the depression of Banning’s tone, the 
other demanded: “What’s wrong, old man?” 

“Do you remember that personal matter I asked 
your advice about several weeks ago?” asked Banning. 

“I do. I believe I suggested that you investigate the 
unfortunate rumors.” 

“Well,” said Banning with an effort, “I had them 
investigated. My wife had spoken of Helman, her 
grandfather. So I sent a man out there to interview 
him.” 

“What did you find?” asked Murray more gently. 

“It’s worse than I suspected. It’s hideous,” said 
Banning pitifully. 

He fumbled among the papers in his pocket, pro¬ 
duced a special-delivery and registered letter from a 


226 . JESSUP 

law firm in St. Louis, and handed it to Murray, say¬ 
ing: “It came this afternoon.” 

Murray stroked his stubby beard as he read the let¬ 
ter. His face grew grave. “H’m,” he muttered 
once. “Christ!” he exclaimed a moment later. “It 
doesn’t seem possible.” 

Banning turned bitterly away. He began twisting 
at a button on his coat with fingers that were icily 
cold. 

“It’s altogether possible, of course,” said Murray, 
“that there is some mistake about all this. I don’t 
question the reliability of your investigators, but there 
is plenty of room for doubt, I should say, as to the 
correctness of the memory, as well as the actual verac¬ 
ity of these people who have been interviewed. I 
shouldn’t accept such allegations as this as final, by 
any means. There is ample room for reasonable 
doubt. Surely there must be documents of some sort 
in your wife’s possession on which she bases her under¬ 
standing of who her people were.” 

“I don’t know,” answered Banning desolately. 

“Why don’t you sound her out?” 

“I hate to.” 

“Very guardedly I mean,” said Murray earnestly. 
“Something may be brought to light that will clear 
everything up. Certainly it would be interesting to 
know how your wife happened to get hold of the por¬ 
trait that she evidently believes to be that of an ances¬ 
tor of hers.” 

Again the distinguished architect adjusted his eye¬ 
glasses and read the letter that he still held in his 


JESSUP 227 

hand. From time to time he would read a phrase or 
a sentence aloud. 

“H’m,” he said once. “No trace of the Jessups 
she speaks of. Or of any connection with operations 
in grain down there In that section.” The architect 
paused. Then he muttered reflectively: “The state¬ 
ment of the physician. . . . Birth records. . . . Let 
me see. That’s twenty-six years ago, isn’t it? How 
old is your wife?” 

“Twenty-six,” said Banning miserably. 

“Even so, there’s nothing conclusive about all this,” 
continued Murray, endeavoring to appear cheerful. 
Again he scrutinized the letter, and read: “ ^Taken 
to the home of Its grandparents in the state of New 
York by another Inmate of the same resort.’ ” 

Banning groaned, and reached for the correspond¬ 
ence. His face was gray. 

“Well, I wouldn’t jump at conclusions,” said Mur¬ 
ray with a singular gentleness in his gruff voice. 
“Don’t do anything in a hurry. Come to dinner with 
me at the club.” 

Left alone for a moment. Banning looked drearily 
at the conference room and its paraphernalia of archi¬ 
tecture. But so deadened was his brain that he was 
unconscious of the irony that here in this atmosphere 
of building, the gleaming structure of his faith had 
come down with a crash upon his head. 

He remembered Jessup running in for the key, radi¬ 
ant in her furs, having just started her Christmas shop¬ 
ping. Locked out of their apartment, she had come 
to him unsuspectingly for the key. 


228 JESSUP 

“Oh, God damn,” he shuddered. “Oh, God damn!” 

“Don’t do anything in a hurry, my boy,” warned 
Murray when they were leaving the club. “Plenty of 
time for action after you make sure —if you make 
sure,” he added with emphasis. “You care a good deal 
for her, do you?” 

“Yes. I only wish I didn’t.” 

“That’s the hell of it,” said Murray. “Whatever 
the facts turn out to be, we can’t have any publicity. 
No publicity. Banning. If it has to come to annulment 
proceedings, they’ve got to be kept out of the news¬ 
papers. That can be managed. I only hope it won’t 
come to that.” They were in front of Murray’s car. 
“Where can I drop you?” he asked. 

“I think I’ll take a walk,” said Banning. 

“An excellent tonic,” said the older man, slapping 
Banning on the back. “Good night.” 

“Good night.” 

Banning set out through the dry, wintry street. His 
brain was gripped by a numbness that permitted 
thoughts only to straggle slowly on their course, and 
his tired thoughts were repeating themselves as they 
revolved in a vicious circle. It began with Herbert 
Dodge’s casual remark months ago on the similarity 
of appearance between Jessup’s ancestor and Ganton, 
the voice teacher; and it ended with to-day’s blasting 
letter from his lawyers in St. Louis. He recalled that 
it was a friend of Nan Sedley’s who had actually iden¬ 
tified the portrait as that of Ganton, and that it was 
Dodge who had for some reason communicated the 


JESSUP ;229 

information to the elder Mrs. Banning. Ivan’s mind 
was confused as to exactly what had been said. The 
suspicions of his mother had been aroused, however, 
and she had caused inquiries regarding the Jessups to 
be made in St. Louis, with the result that some of her 
suspicions had been confirmed and some new ones in¬ 
voked. Banning had confided in Murray, and Mur¬ 
ray had urged that the facts be carefully sifted. 

And now, with the results of the investigation 
bristling in his path, Ivan Banning strode through the 
streets trying vainly to get hold of his thoughts and 
to drive them in straight lines. Murray’s hopeful 
repetition of his belief that the evidence in hand might 
not be conclusive afforded Banning no comfort. A 
sinister conviction that the reports concerning his wife 
were true had sunk heavily into his consciousness and 
imbedded itself too deeply to be dislodged. 

Already, in the sickening light of this evidence, he 
could understand different things that had hitherto mys¬ 
tified him, and was suddenly able to perceive signifi¬ 
cance in episodes that had seemed trivial to him at the 
time they occurred. He began to understand why 
Jessup had gone simply by the name of “Miss Jessup” 
at the time he had met her and why she had declined 
to use the name “Helman,” her mother’s family name. 
He recalled that she had never spoken of her family 
until practically forced to do so under direct examina¬ 
tion by his mother. He remembered the persistence 
with which she had questioned him one night soon after 
their marriage concerning houses of ill-fame, the kind 
of women identified with these resorts, and the kind 


230 JESSUP 

of men who frequented them. With a sinking heart 
he recalled her question as to whether women of that 
kind ever had children. He had attached no Impor¬ 
tance to her casual inquiries at the time; he had at¬ 
tributed them to idle feminine curiosity; it had not 
occurred to him to look for a subtler motive. 

As these memories went scraping and grating 
through his mind, Banning knew that he could not bear 
silence on the subject between Jessup and himself any 
longer. If there was any mistake about his suspicions, 
he felt that he had to know it. If they were based 
upon fact, he had to know that. He felt like a dog 
for pursuing this foul evidence in secret. He wished 
to God that he had gone at once to Jessup with the 
information that the portrait was of Ganton, and not 
of Amos Jessup. It was hideous, this work of a sur¬ 
reptitious and slinking pick-and-shovel crew behind her 
back. He blamed Dodge, he blamed Nan Sedley, he 
blamed his mother, he blamed Murray, and he blamed 
himself for this whispering, this ghastly gossip. 

A wave of tenderness for Jessup started through 
him with a rush. An Infinite pity mingled with a sav¬ 
age Impulse to protect her. The conspiracy into 
which he had been drawn to tear facts out of their 
hiding-places suddenly seemed frightful and intolerable. 
An excruciating wish that he had kept out of It slashed 
him. The numbness of his brain gave way to a poign¬ 
ant regret, and a sense of Indescribable remorse took 
possession of him. 

He sprang into a taxi, and gave the driver his ad¬ 
dress. His previous doubt as to what to do or where 


JESSUP 231 

to go all left him, as he realized only now that he had 
actually been stalking in the direction opposite to that 
of his home. He was swept with anxiety as to whether 
Jessup had remained at home this evening. He felt 
in desperate need of her, as if by crushing her in his 
arms and shielding her he could make amends for the 
evil he had done her. 

“Hurry up!” he yelled at the driver. He could 
hardly restrain himself from leaping into the front 
seat, thrusting the other aside, seizing the wheel, and 
jamming the throttle to the floor-board. 

He thought of his early walks with Jessup through 
bright autumnal streets, his first dance with her, the 
delicious waiting for her at the stage-door, the pun¬ 
gent pools of orange-colored light on the sidewalk re¬ 
flected from the lights of the Rialto. 

He realized now that nothing could make him be¬ 
tray her. He no longer cared who she was, or what 
she was, or where she had come from. “In heaven’s 
name, what difference does it make anyway!” he ex¬ 
claimed aloud. He no longer cared if the whole world 
turned against her; he would stand by her. With a 
pang he remembered his coolness toward her at the 
office that afternoon. He remembered her hurt and 
anxious look as she went away, and that look of hers 
had haunted him ever since. He swore that he would 
never treat her that way again. 

He reflected that he must have been demented to 
allow the investigation to be made that had brought 
the despicable back-wash of to-day’s paralyzing letter. 
What had possessed him to show that letter to Mur- 


232] JESSUP, 

ray? Why had he not torn it up and kept the facts 
sealed in his own mind where they could go no further? 
He had already done Diana an irreparable injustice by 
planting the seeds of this knowledge in the minds of 
others. How could he correct it and how could he 
make amends? 

In his frantic mood of self-reproach he kept repeat¬ 
ing to himself that Diana’s origin concerned nobody 
but herself. All that concerned him or anybody else 
was what she had made of herself. The soil from 
which she had sprung was none of his business. Be¬ 
sides, who was he to pick and dig at the roots of her 
life and unearth these facts and hold them against her? 
He thought of himself as a rooting swine. 

Could he conceal his traitorous act, could he hide 
it from her, or would it betray him in spite of him¬ 
self? Would it taint his voice and his manner, would 
it show in his eyes, would the loathing of himself not 
be apparent to her the instant she saw him again? A 
dread of having to face her crept through his nerves 
and made him chill. 

Was he enough of an actor to secrete the knowledge 
of what he had done, and to save her from finding it 
out? He strove to gain control of himself and calm 
himself for the ordeal of pretense and concealment. 
He realized that his nerves were in rags. 

A prolonged stop of the taxi on account of a col¬ 
lision that had occurred just ahead made him wish that 
his car had run amuck and that he had been killed. 
He would rather have been carried back to Jessup on 
a stretcher than to endure any longer the knowledge of 


JESSUP 233 

the step he Had taken against her. But the pause made 
it possible for him to regain command of his nerves. 
He lit a cigarette and drew deep breaths of its quiet¬ 
ing fumes into his lungs. 

As he smoked and grew calmer, the old imperious 
love with which he had pursued Jessup, mercifully re¬ 
vived. The irresistible magic with which she had 
moved into his life reoccupied him with its glow. The 
sorcery of her charm ran through him like a sparkling 
river. Her image floated exquisitely before him. 

Again the car was in motion, and as it traversed the 
remaining half-mile. Banning leaned forward eagerly, 
ready to leap out the moment he reached his des¬ 
tination. 

Jessup admitted him. 

“Do you know,” she said, “I had my key with me 
after all. I discovered it when I got home. Wasn’t 
it ridiculous of me?” 

“Nothing you could possibly do could ever be ridicu¬ 
lous!” exclaimed Banning, taking her in his arms. 
“Everything about you is perfect. Forgive me for 
staying away from home this evening. I could hardly 
wait until I got back to you. Please don’t ever stop 
loving me, Diana. You don’t know how dear you are 
to me.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


The waning afternoon was gradually dimming the 
light In Jessup’s studio, so that at length, scarcely able 
to distinguish the outlines of the Impressions she had 
been jotting down on a pad of paper, she abandoned 
her effort and sat dreaming In the dusk. She had 
been absorbedly experimenting with costumes for vari¬ 
ous figures. One was a Moorish prince with a sash of 
red cashmere, a jewel-encrusted sword-belt, and a great 
emerald smoldering in his white turban. She had tried 
her hand at a Desdemona, draping her in the palest 
of vapory blues. In silvers and In golds, with a trellis 
of pearls entwining a head of gorgeous hair; at a 
Briinnehilde in luminous robes. She had been sketch¬ 
ing sandals and scarves and laces. She wondered why 
Hamlet should Invariably be played In Inky blacks, and 
whether melancholy could not be more effectively ex¬ 
pressed by brooding purples, or even by red, which was 
the color of mourning in the Denmark of Hamlet’s 
time. 

Royalty In gold and ermine, cardinals and priests, 
Valkyrian figures hovering over mediaeval battlefields. 
Colonial creatures amazingly hooped and panniered, 
Alpine peasants In red stomachers and gaudy mittens, 
curious exotic types from everywhere had for months 

234 


JESSUP 235 

been passing in a continuous stream before her on her 
drawing-board as she searched for certain effects. 
Here In the studio, Jessup lived In a world of costume. 
She tested the values of all manner of girdles, tunics, 
hoods; of pleatings and frills and bandeaux; of colors 
in Innumerable combinations. 

The human frame was her stage; colors and textiles 
and plumes and furs and jewels were the actors on that 
stage. She too was an architect, but she did not build 
with wood and rock and masonry. The human body 
was the landscape on which she built; she took the 
forms of men and women and covered them up. What 
was the source of this craving, she wondered, to drape 
and garb and cover things up ? What were its origins 
and Its impulse? Had it anything to do, she wondered, 
with her own pretense to be someone that she was not? 

Sinking deeper into her reverie, she recalled the 
momentary sense of panic that had filled her when 
Herbert Dodge had turned to the portrait of the ances¬ 
tor and had mistaken It for a voice teacher by the 
name of Canton. She had not seen or heard from 
Dodge since the day she had insulted him. Even that 
absurd and ludicrous picture of him on his knees had 
been fading from her memory. 

Ivan had been singularly tender to her of late; at 
times she had thought that she detected an unnatural 
wistfulness In his manner; and again she had perceived 
a disturbing taciturnity that she could not fathom. 
Christmas had come and gone, but Ivan had avoided 
bringing her and his mother together during the holi¬ 
days. 


236 JESSUP 

Jessup did not know that Ivan was with his mother 
at this moment, and that they were heatedly discussing 
her. At noon that day Mrs. Banning had telephoned 
her son, stating that she had an important piece of 
news for him, and that she must see him immediately. 
Ivan had presently left his office, and now a brief but 
tense scene was being enacted in the home of Mrs. 
Banning. 

“You didn’t tell me the truth, Ivan, about that inves¬ 
tigation in St. Louis. You assured me you had received 
no report,” Ivan’s mother was saying. 

“Well?” he replied defiantly. 

“I have myself communicated with that law firm,” 
she answered sententiously. 

“You did?” 

“I most assuredly did. And I find that instead of 
your having heard nothing, as you have claimed, you 
have had a complete report of the most sweeping and 
damning nature in your possession for at least one 
month. Why have you attempted to cover it up?” 

“Because I didn’t think it concerned me,” returned 
Ivan firmly. 

“Oh, you didn’t think it concerned you?” was the 
contemptuous response. “Well, it does concern you, 
and what is more, it concerns me and it concerns your 
sister. I never got such a shock before in my life. I’m 
frank to say I suspected that all was not precisely as 
this woman had represented. I believed all along that 
that vague and flimsy account of her family was largely 
invented. It was like pulling teeth to get anything out 
of her. But the actual truth of itl” 


JESSUP 237 

Mrs. Banning’s final words were uttered in a half- 
hysterical tone. Her lips came grimly together, and 
in her eyes was an outraged look. 

“Do you mean to say that you believe all that rot?”" 
asked Ivan, forcing himself to appear calm. 

“There isn’t any doubt of it!” exclaimed the mother. 
“The proofs are conclusive. I want you to know 
that I’ve gone to the trouble of having every phase of 
this affair absolutely confirmed. The proofs are in 
documentary form in the hands of my own lawyers.” 

Again Mrs. Banning’s voice broke and now she be¬ 
gan to weep. Ivan sat looking at her pityingly, and 
after a moment he crossed to her to comfort her. 

“It has taken ten years out of me,” whimpered his 
mother. “The humiliation of it is more than I can 
endure. Dear heavens, why couldn’t you have taken 
my advice and let her alone? I could see that there 
was only tragedy ahead. I could sense it.” 

“What’s done is done,” answered Banning. 

“But it’s got to be undone.” 

“There’s nothing that can be undone.” 

“Ivan!” cried the mother. 

“Yes, mother.” 

“Just what do you mean?” she asked hoarsely. 

“I’ve thought everything carefully over, and I’ve 
made up my mind to stick,” said Banning in a voice 
that left no doubt as to his determination. 

“What?” gasped his mother. 

Banning repeated what he had said. 

“Are you demented?” she cried. 

“No, I think not.” 


238 JESSUP 

“Then you don’t know what you’re saying!” 

“I know exactly what I’m saying.” 

“You can’t possibly know what you’re saying,” pro¬ 
tested Mrs. Banning savagely. “Don’t you dare stand 
there and say that you do I I tell you the situation is 
Impossible. It’s untenable. It’s the most disgusting 
thing I ever heard of. It’s hideous. It’s a nightmare. 
Why, that woman is Illegitimate 1 ” 

There was a frenzy In Mrs. Banning’s voice and a 
frenzy in her eyes. She seized Ivan’s wrist and grasped 
it so hard that he winced under the pressure of her 
rings. 

^“Please don’t excite yourself, mother,” said Ivan. 

“Illegitimate, I tell you,” said the other In wither¬ 
ing voice. “An illegitimate of the lowest level.” 

A look of grim ferocity hardened in Banning’s eyes. 

“Please 1 ” he protested. 

“Be still! An illegitimate, I tell you. Born In a 
dive. Do you hear me—In a dive! With God only 
knows what for a father, and a common harlot for a 
mother. And you stand there and try to defend her. 
Oh, get out of my sight!” 

Banning went back to his office. The violent words 
of his mother rang like a knell in his ears. Like a knell 
they rang in his ears, beating back and forth against 
the walls of his brain. 

“Mr. Murray wants to see you,” said Banning’s 
secretary. 

Banning did not answer. He sat dazedly at his desk, 
oblivious of the time of the day, aware of nothing but 


JESSUP 239 

the gruesome words that his mother had slung into his 
face. 

“Hello, Banning,” said Murray. “Come into my 
office, will you please?” 

Banning obeyed mechanically, and Murray closed 
the door behind them. 

“Have you seen your mother?” asked the architect 
in his gruff but kindly voice. 

“Yes.” 

“She talked to me about this unfortunate matter. 
You know, you can’t very well ignore her wishes. You 
can’t detach yourself from your family. And even 
if you wanted to and even if you could, you’d have to 
consider your relation to society generally, and last 
but not least your relation to your business.” 

The architect placed his hand affectionately on Ban¬ 
ning’s shoulder, and continued: “I know pretty well 
how you feel. I can understand why you resent the 
idea of throwing her over.” 

“I couldn’t do that,” said Banning, shaking his head. 

“She has charm. Exceptional charm. And an 
extraordinary amount of talent,” returned the head 
of the firm. “It’s a shame something like this had to 
happen. It isn’t her fault. She just happens to be 
the victim. I can fully understand your generous im¬ 
pulse. I can see how you want to be decent about it. 
But this is one of those cases in which society simply 
won’t let you.” 

“Society!” snarled Banning. “What the hell has 
society to do with it? This is my business. It’s my 
own personal and private affair.” 


240 


JESSUP 

“Your attitude Is very admirable,” answered Mur¬ 
ray, soothingly. He Inserted the tip of a cigarette In 
a tortoise-shell holder, lit the cigarette with a flourish, 
and added: “Ordinarily I should be the last man in the 
world to Interfere with so generous an Impulse, 
but-” 

“Generous?” Interrupted Banning with sudden fury. 
“It Isn’t a case of generosity. God damn it, I love 
her I” 

The older architect sighed. “I know, old man,” he 
said sympathetically. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m 
not trying to turn you against her. Why should I? 
I wish her all the luck In the world. But we’ve got to 
look at this thing In a more practical way.” 

Murray’s heavy grayish teeth came together with a 
click. He was balancing himself alternately on his 
heels and toes. His arms were folded and the smoke 
of his cigarette was trailing upward along the sleeve of 
his coat toward the shoulder 

“Well, I don’t want to discuss it,” replied Banning 
sullenly. 

“It’s got to be discussed,” was the unyielding re¬ 
sponse. “I’ve got to know where you stand.” 

“You know exactly where I stand.” 

“Your stand Is Incompatible with the Interests of 
this firm,” declared the older man solemnly. “It’s 
against your own business Interests. You would make 
yourself and your associates the objects of Inevitable 
ridicule. Too many people know about this matter 
already. It can’t go on.” 

Banning was staring gloomily Into space. Suddenly 



JESSUP 241 

Ke burst out: “I had no Idea you were such a prude I 
For Christ’s sake what are you afraid of? Is my pro¬ 
fessional standing, Is your professional standing on 
such thin ice that It’s going to crack under the weight 
of gossip? Let the half-wits talk!” 

“But my dear fellow,” argued the other earnestly, 
“it means something worse. It means social ostra¬ 
cism.” 

“What If It does?” 

“Ah, but clients aren’t secured that way and they 
aren’t held that way. It can’t be done.” 

“Then what do you want me to do? Resign?” de¬ 
manded Banning, grimly. 

“No, I shouldn’t like to see you do that. But even 
If you did, how could that possibly solve your prob¬ 
lem?” 

“Oh, I suppose I could scrape together enough 
money for us to live abroad,” said Banning scornfully. 

“That wouldn’t solve It either,” answered Murray. 

“Since when has the world become so pious?” de¬ 
manded Banning bitterly. “I don’t know any men 
who have led such blameless lives. Do you? And as 
for women, why, they’re running absolutely wild these 
days. There’s more carousing than there ever was. 
I’d like to know why two people can’t be permitted to 
lead a quiet, decent life together.” 

“What you say Is perfectly true,” conceded Murray. 
“But It Isn’t a matter of logic. It’s a matter of deep, 
unreasoning, and Ineradicable prejudice. It’s perfectly 
true that the world condones Immorality. But there 


242 JESSUP 

is one thing that the world does not overlook or con¬ 
done and that thing is a questionable paternity.” 

Banning did not answer. In appearance he was 
calm, but beneath the surface he was writhing under 
the welt left by the other’s final blow. 

“So you see,” spoke Murray in a softer tone, “there 
isn’t anything else to do. The marriage has got to be 
annulled. Don’t make an outcast of yourself. It 
wouldn’t do you any good and it wouldn’t do the 
woman any good. If she really cares for you, she 
wouldn’t want it anyway. You can be grateful that 
you made this discovery before you had any children. 
Don’t you suppose that she must have some knowledge 
of all this?” 

“I don’t know,” said Banning with a deadened voice. 
“I don’t think she has.” 

“It’s not a pleasant thing for her to have to find 
out.” 

Banning groaned. 

“Have you questioned her at all?” 

“No.” 

“Then I’d let my lawyers inform her,” said Murray 
decisively. 

“No, I couldn’t do that.” 

“Don’t attempt to put yourself through the agony 
of that sort of a scene with her,” begged Murray. “It’s 
much better to let your lawyers handle it.” 

“No, it’s too brutal.” 

“Nonsense. Putting it up to your lawyers places the 
entire episode on a purely professional basis. They 
can be depended upon to treat with your wife in a tact- 


JESSUP 243 

ful and kindly manner. It will save both you and her 
from the emotional strain of the other method. In 
fairness to you both, it is by far the wiser way to pro¬ 
ceed,” was the suave reply. 

Banning sat limp and dejected in his chair. The 
fighting quality in him had subsided. He felt beaten 
and frustrated. He knew that he lacked the inherent 
stamina to wage further war against the odds that 
were massed against him. He lacked the vitality. He 
did not agree with his mother, and he did not agree 
with Daniel J. Murray. He knew that there was some¬ 
thing subtly selfish, something essentially narrow and 
mean and cowardly about their arrogant points of 
view. But he felt unable to hold out any longer. For 
He knew that their hammering derived its power from 
a strength and will far deeper and more profound than 
their own strength and will as individuals. It was an 
austere and somber symbol of a formidable world of 
unrelenting tradition and coagulated shams. 

It came to him in a flash that this arrogant world 
which had nurtured and pampered him had rendered 
him incapable of brandishing a sword against it now 
and defying its conventions. He wished he were able 
to indulge in heroics and to carry into dramatic action 
the chivalric impulses that glowed and glistened inside 
of him; but the ease in which he had grown to man¬ 
hood, and the years of unquestioning acceptance of the 
world as he had found it, had made the effort impos¬ 
sible. He realized that it was too late. The rugged 
stuff of heroism was not in him. Even the love that 


244 ' JESSUP 

had spurred him on into momentary fortitude and defi¬ 
ance, was Incapable of thrusting him on. 

With a resigned and beaten air, he bade Murray 
good night. Murray knew and Banning knew that 
the surrender was complete and unconditional. 

“Let me know if there Is anything I can do,” said 
the older man when he was starting away. 

“All right.” 

^‘Count on me for every assistance.” 

“Thanks.” 

“She’ll understand,” said the old architect, wringing 
Banning’s hand sympathetically. 

Banning Instructed his secretary to telephone his 
home that he would be detained for dinner. Unable 
to face Diana to-night, he set out alone for one of his 
clubs. He had to be alone; he had to think; he had 
to plan how to deliver the blow that had to be struck. 
He was filled with a creepy sensation; he felt like a 
sneaking footpad. 

He recalled that Diana was getting ready for a 
public exhibition of her sketches at one of the art 
galleries. Her exhibition opened to-morrow. Well, 
he reflected. It would help occupy her mind after the 
descent of the blow that had to be delivered. But it 
was a frightful thing to have to do. It was like strik¬ 
ing with a sandbag in the dark. 


CHAPTER XIX 


The opening of Jessup’s exhibition found her in a 
state of nervous expectation. She had enjoyed the 
weeks of preparation, the selection of subjects, the 
ordering of frames, the cataloguing and hanging. The 
volume of work she had turned out, its variety, its 
freedom and swing, the wild barbaric quality of some 
of it gave her peculiar sensations of satisfaction. She 
could perceive in some of her sketches the indubitable 
record of certain phases of her temperament that she 
fancied she could never have caught and fixed through 
the medium of any other art. She recognized with 
secret satisfaction that here and there she had caught 
true impressions of fugitive and volatile elements of 
her deeper self in a manner that almost frightened her. 
These chords and strains and fugues seemed to express 
her inner self. 

In this mysterious minstrelsy of the brush and pen, 
she wondered if others could discern the meaning. 
There were sketches in which horns and trumpets 
blared her defiance of the whole world, and there were 
others in which flutes and oboes sounded plaintive over¬ 
tones that she hoped no one but herself would detect. 

Now that she inspected her work in the gallery’s 
flood of light, she felt ashamed of its imperfections. 
She was aware of her shortcomings. In studies that 

245 


246 JESSUP 

she had regarded as sufficiently finished to show, she 
now saw only the rudiments of the themes she had 
endeavored to convey. She felt conscious of her lack 
of more schooling. She remembered nightmares in 
which, sitting at the wheel of fast-moving motor cars, 
she had suddenly realized that she knew nothing about 
driving and had been seized with a paralyzing sense of 
panic. She had experienced a similar feeling immedi¬ 
ately after her marriage to Ivan, and she felt that way 
now as she gazed with misgivings at the display of her 
work. 

Ivan had seemed enthusiastic concerning her ap¬ 
proaching exhibition, but she wondered now whether 
he had been genuinely so, or had merely pretended to 
be. He had not been home to dinner on the night be¬ 
fore the opening, and had only returned after she had 
retired. In the morning he had eaten a hurried break¬ 
fast, had seemed preoccupied, and had rushed away, 
hoping to be able to join her at the gallery that after¬ 
noon, but because of a pressure of appointments he 
had been unable to promise definitely. It was now 
nearly five o’clock, and he had not yet come. 

Notices of the exhibition had been sent to a consider¬ 
able mailing list, and the New York newspapers had 
made generous announcements of the event. The old 
publicity concerning Jessup’s stage career, her ‘‘hit” 
in musical comedy, the discovery of her talent as a 
theatrical costume designer, her marriage to Ivan Ban¬ 
ning, had been dug up and rehashed in most of the 
dailies. It made a diverting and romantic story. 

Numerous visitors from Broadway had strolled in to 


JESSUP 247 

see her pictures. Among them was Charles Salant, 
who, as sponsor for Jessup’s first efforts in this field, 
had of course figured in the newspaper stories. He 
was the same dapper person, with the old look of 
frank admiration. 

“You don’t mean to tell me you’ve done all this?” 
he demanded. “By Jove, you’re the fastest thing I 
ever saw with a brush. Don’t you ever sleep? Or 
play? Why haven’t you been to see me lately? How 
is that husband of yours? You know I bear him a 
first-class grudge. He stole you away from me,” he 
said with lowered tone. “But he’d better look out. 
I haven’t forgotten you.” 

Jessup looked at him and laughed quietly. It did 
nof offend her to-day to be admired. She remembered 
how near she had come to surrendering herself to 
Salant. She remembered how Incapable she had been 
of doing so when it came to the actual decision, and 
how in the end she had rushed to the telephone in 
response to Ivan’s persistent ringing, and how she had 
begged him to come to her. 

Nordahl, the unforgetable director of rehearsals in 
the hot, steamy air of Bryant Hall, also ran in. He 
looked a little older. With the Incessant grind of pro¬ 
ducing musical comedies, he was still the busiest man 
on Broadway. But there was no perceptible diminu¬ 
tion in the nervous energy of the grizzled old man of 
the theater. The same laconic quality dominated every 
word he spoke. He had probably never uttered a long 
sentence in his life. 

“Ah, Miss Jessup,” he said, “I haven’t seen much of 


248 JESSHB 

you. Now I know why. You’ve been working. This 
is your field. I told you so. Keep it up. Don’t let 
anyone stop you. This is what we need. Without the 
right costumes we haven’t got a show. We can’t rely 
on Cain’s storehouse. What have you got there?” 
he demanded, going to one of the sketches. 

“Oh, just a try at Peer Gynt/^ replied Jessup apol¬ 
ogetically. 

“I don’t understand it,” muttered the manager, 
screwing up his eyes. “What kind of a kid was he?” 

“An Ibsen kid,” smiled Jessup, doubting if Nordahl 
had never heard of Ibsen. 

“I know. I’ve read Peer Gynt in four languages,” 
he surprised Jessup by answering. “But I don’t get 
him. You keep at it. You’re all right. You draw a 
damn sight better than you danced. I’ve got to run. 
I’m rehearsing two new shows. They won’t let me 
rest. I’ve got too many girls who can’t dance. My 
God, they don’t even know how to walk. Where they 
get them I don’t know. I’ve got to teach them every¬ 
thing. It keeps me frantic.” 

Poor Nordahl, mused Jessup, watching him rush 
away. He had been the first to show her any kindness 
during her efforts to get a foothold on Broadway. He 
had even been good enough to come to her wedding. 
She would never forget the reassuring absence of sex 
in his tired eyes. In her reminiscent mood she thought 
of Franz Sadner, the orchestrator, and how she had 
watched him enviously one night as he sat in a cheap 
restaurant writing on the back of a menu. She had 
assumed that he was composing, but had been sur- 


JESSUP 249 

prised to find tKat Ke was doing sums; sKe wondered 
what had become of Sadner and if he was still worried 
about his finances and making records of his debts 
over his coffee and stew. She remembered hearing it 
said that for twenty years the brunt of Broadway’s 
orchestration had fallen upon Franz Sadner, that his 
genius had taken countless commonplace scores and 
embroidered them into musical distinction, that his 
touch had transferred one hopeless song after another 
into an instantaneous hit. She did not know that Sad¬ 
ner had been dead for nearly a year and that he had 
died with his name unknown except to a limited inner 
circle of producers and composers and orchestra men; 
while Jessup, a newcomer on Broadway and gifted with 
but meager talent, had in a few brief years developed a 
larger earning-power than she had ever hoped to have, 
and had become so well known that people were arriv¬ 
ing in flocks to see her pictures and the newspapers 
were praising her exhibition. 

Life seemed a curious jumble to her. She did not 
understand its ironic twists of fortune; she could not 
understand why she, with her dubious background, 
should have been singled out for the good fortune that 
had come to her. 

Among the visitors was an American portrait 
painter of eminence, who, having dropped in at the 
gallery on another errand, paused out of idle curiosity 
for a look at her sketches. In appearance he was dis¬ 
tinguished: his figure was tall and spare and he car¬ 
ried himself with a dignity closely related to disdain. 


250 JESSUP 

His face was tanned and his straight nose and long 
slender cheeks bore the severe stamp of breeding. In 
dress he was precise. There was a constrained elas¬ 
ticity about his movements, and he seemed surrounded 
by an invisible atmosphere of coolness, distance, and 
authority. He looked forbidding and remote. There 
was none of the flair of the Latin Quarter about him. 
He was an Academician and looked it. 

His grey eyes were moving from object to object 
with a deliberate and searching air. They seemed to 
brood and ponder. Finally his gaze came to a stop 
at one of Jessup’s sketches. He said to his companion: 

“There’s a beginning of something there. Who did 
them?” 

“A Miss Jessup.” 

“Who is she?” 

“She used to be on the stage, I believe. Wife of a 
young architect in partnership with Murray. Do you 
know her work?” 

The other shook his head taciturnly. “An English 
artist?” he inquired. 

“American, I believe.” 

“Apparently under the Russian influence,” said the 
painter. 

“Bakst?” suggested his companion. 

“Perhaps. I don’t know. She has originality. And 
a curious sort of imaginative energy. Look at that 
satyr. Humph, I rather like that.” 

The proprietor of the gallery, recognizing the por¬ 
trait painter, hastened to welcome him. And a moment 
later, he asked permission to introduce him to Jessup. 


JESSUP 251 

‘‘How do you do,” said Jessup, looking up Into ]fche 
piercing eyes of the noted painter with a definite feel¬ 
ing of awe. “Of course I know your work. Who 
doesn’t?” 

The painter bowed. 

“It’s embarrassing to'have you see my work,” added 
Jessup. “Please don’t look at any more of It,” she 
begged with an uncontrollable sense of dismay. 

A smile played round the other’s grave eyes. “Why 
not?” he asked. “You have talent.” 

Jessup flushed. “Do you really think so?” she 
exclaimed. “Or are you only saying it?” she demanded 
earnestly. 

“It is many years since I have been guilty of saying 
what I did not think,” answered the painter aloofly. 

“Then dare I ask you to criticize my sketches?”' 
ventured Jessup with an odd feeling of agitation. 

“I don’t know that I can,” was the reticent reply. 

“Please,” she begged. Never before had she beei| 
quite so anxious for another’s judgment. 

For fully a minute, the painter gazed In silence at 
one of her sketches, while Jessup waited for this frigid 
personage to speak. 

“You have a scorn for some of the conventions,” 
he said at length. “I don’t object to your freedom. 
Where did you study?” 

Jessup told him. 

“They didn’t teach you very much,” he continued 
brusquely. “Your trend hasn’t followed your school¬ 
ing. No one taught you this rebellion. It’s Instinctive, 
Isn’t it?” 


jEss.m; 


252;.: 

“I don’t know.” 

“You know color. You manage to keep fairly clear 
of muddy effects. You can get your somber impres¬ 
sions, you know, without being muddy.” 

“Am I too fantastic?” asked Jessup, hungry for this 
man’s appraisal of her work. 

“No.” 

Her critic lapsed Into silence. Then he said: “But 
you know. In spite of your rather extraordinary free¬ 
dom, I get the feeling of a curious sort of restraint. 
iYou sometimes seem to get started one way and then 
you seem to be afraid. ,You apply the brakes. You 
peter out. You wind up with a pinched effect. You 
seem to be covering something up. You’re withholding 
something. Hiding something. Isn’t that right?” 

“Perhaps,” she answered with the feeling that this 
man was looking straight through her. 

“Has no one ever told you that?” he asked. 

^ “No.” 

“I should like sometime to see some of the work 
you are not exhibiting,” he added reflectively. Then he 
bowed abruptly and strode away. 

Jessup, following him with her eyes, was glad that 
she had met him, but was glad that he was gone. He 
had made her Inexplicably uncomfortable. It was a 
relief that his forbidding eyes were no longer on her, 
no longer on her work. 

The painter strode in silence up the avenue with 
his companion. 

“.There’s something about those sketches back there 


JESSUP 253 

tKat infierests me,” he said presently. ‘‘Perhaps it’s 
their grotesque, barbaric quality. Do you know, there 
is a good deal of that buried in me.” 

“In you?” 

“More than you would suspect.” 

“But your entire method is just the opposite. You 
paint with the severest of restraint. You’ve always 
painted that way.” 

“I know,” said the portraitist. “And I always shall. 
And yet there is another side to me that never gets on 
canvas.” 

“That’s interesting,” said the other, waiting for the 
artist to continue. 

“It wasn’t without an effort, a terrific effort at times, 
that I have painted with the restraint you speak of. If 
I had ever let go, I might have become the most ob¬ 
streperous of the radicals.” 

His friend laughed incredulously. “Are you seri¬ 
ous?” 

“Quite.” 

“It’s impossible to think of you that way.” 

“And yet the elements of it are all pent up inside 
of me,” spoke the painter contemplatively. “That 
young woman’s work brings it all back.” 

“Then why don’t you cut loose?” asked the other. 

The painter shook his head. “It’s too late. They’d 
think I had gone crazy.” 

“I dare say they would.” 

“I should no longer be considered safe and sane,” 
added the painter dryly. 

As the men were approaching the studio, they met 


254 


JESSUP 

two nuns coming from the opposite direction. The 
painter stepped deferentially aside to let them pass. 

It was an elaborate studio into which the painter 
ushered his companion. Its stained glass and rugs 
and tapestries, its cabinets, potteries, chests and curi¬ 
ous boxes suggested world-wide quests and fastidious 
choosing. On an easel beneath the slanting skylight 
stood a tall canvas on the rough surface of which clung 
the unfinished but gorgeous image of New York’s new¬ 
est grand opera star. 

The visitor gave an exclamation of delight. 

“You recognize her?” asked the painter. 

The other spoke her name. “How many sittings 
does it represent?” he inquired. 

“Three.” 

“You work with the same old speed,” was the admir¬ 
ing reply. 

“Some Scotch and soda,” said the painter to his 
servant. 

“Those nuns we just passed,” said his friend, “re¬ 
minded me of a remark you once made. It must have 
been twenty or twenty-five years ago. It was down in 
St. Louis, I believe. Or was It Chicago? You were 
in the clutch of Huysmans at the time. You were 
quoting Huysmans on nuns, to the effect that the real 
punishment they endure Is ‘the ardent, wild regret for 
that maternity of which they are Ignorant.’ Do you 
remember?” 

A reminiscent look drifted Into the painter’s eyes. 
He nodded. 

“Curious how a chance remark like that will stick 


JESSUP 255 

to the mmd,” continued the other. “I never see a nun 
but what I think of it. ‘The desolate womb of a 
woman revolting,’ or words to that effect. You were 
wondering if the same didn’t apply to prostitutes. 
Remember?” 

Again the painter nodded. A stream of reverie 
bore him back among blurred and misty memories. 
The images grew clearer. He was thinking of a hot 
summer night, and of a street lined by a row of poplar 
trees from whose boughs came a continuous whisper¬ 
ing—a somber murmuring of tongues of green in sum¬ 
mer and a sharper cackling from brown dry throats 
after frost. 

“The girl you had that night seemed to have made 
quite an impression on you,” continued his compan¬ 
ion reminiscently. 

“I faintly recall the episode, but not the girl,” said 
the painter. 

“You kept harping on her. I recall that you grew 
more or less sentimental. She had seemed to you 
rather dainty and refined. Didn’t you actually get to 
speculating as to whether a woman like that ever had 
children?” 

“I believe I did,” said the painter meditatively. 
“You contended that you had never heard of cradles 
in a brothel.” 

“And you argued that many a time a foundling was 
discovered on someone’s doorstep. It seemed that 
this girl had taken something of a fancy to you. Some¬ 
thing or other that she had said seemed to have set 
you to wondering. I tried to find out what the devil 


256 JESSUP 

she could have said to make you take it all so seri¬ 
ously.” 

The artist was lost in contemplation. 

“Well, we were both young and disillusioned,” said 
the other. 

“Yes, of course,” said the artist, with a smile. 

For an instant his smile was blent with a vague and 
tenuous look of speculation. But it vanished as 
quickly as it had flitted to his face, and he reached for 
his glass and drank. 

“When are you sailing?” asked the other. 

“On the twenty-seventh,” answered the painter. 

“You lucky dog. I haven’t been in Europe since 
the war. You haven’t missed a year, have you? I 
want you to dine with us before you leave.” 

“I shall be glad to. How Is your family?” 

“First-rate.” 

“Isn’t your daughter studying singing?” asked the 
painter. 

“Yes. We’re sending her abroad in another year,” 
answered the other with paternal satisfaction. 

“Whom are you sending her to?” 

“Oh, she’s got her heart set on some Italian over 
there. I can’t remember his name to save my life. 
I had an Idea that all the good teachers had made a 
bee-line for over here, but to attempt to reason with 
the young lady is like talking to an Iron fence. Am I 
right In supposing that there are plenty of fine voice 
teachers over here?” 

“I’m sure I can’t say,” replied the painter. 

“I thought you knew that musical crowd pretty well. 


JESSUP 257 

I hardly ever set foot in your studio but I find you 
painting some prima donna. And if I’m not mistaken, 
the first portrait of yours that you ever showed me was 
of some singer, wasn’t it?” 

“I really don’t remember.” 

“Yes, I remember it distinctly. It was an old fellow 
who wore a stock. Who was he, anyway?” 

“Do you mean Canton, the singing teacher?” asked 
the artist. 

“Canton. That’s who it was.” 

“He died long before my portrait of him was ever 
painted. I worked from a photograph. It was one 
of my early pot-boilers,” answered the painter with a 
deprecatory smile. 


CHAPTER XX 


Jessup was aware of a tense unnaturalness in 
Ivan’s attitude toward her. He kept asserting that he 
was not good enough for her. For the past two days 
he had hardly touched his breakfast and had been away 
for dinner, not returning to the apartment until late 
at night. She wondered if a misfortune had occurred 
and what he was concealing. 

The nervous tension created by his manner and by 
his absence roused her apprehensions. Instinctively 
she associated Ivan’s conduct with the old enmity of 
his mother. This notion was strengthened on the eve¬ 
ning following the opening of the exhibition, when 
Mrs. Banning telephoned her son’s apartment. Jessup 
answered. 

“Is Mr. Banning there?” asked his mother. 

“No, he hasn’t come in. This is Diana,” replied 
Jessup. 

“Tell him to call up his mother if he returns,” said 
Mrs. Banning icily and hung up. 

The curt answer and abrupt disconnection were so 
deliberate an insult that the episode left Jessup shaken 
with momentary surprise. But the rage that Jessup 
might ordinarily have felt at such an affront did not 
well up in her in this instance. Neither did she feel 
wounded. A singular reaction took place. She felt 


JESSUP 259 

a sudden profound superiority to tHe other’s narrow¬ 
ness and meanness of spirit A pride, a self-esteem, a 
cold hauteur dominated her. She felt a sustaining for¬ 
titude. It came to her that she possessed something 
above and beyond the bickering, the petulant wrangling 
of families at odds with themselves. 

A spiritual calmness enveloped her. The ill-tem¬ 
pered words of Banning’s mother had made the lis¬ 
tener realize that those paltry words and the tone in 
which they were uttered must have issued from some¬ 
thing that was inherently petty and ignoble. For the 
first time since Ivan had loomed up in her life, she felt 
herself to be his equal and the equal of his family. The 
deep-rooted and lingering conviction of inferiority was 
gone. 

Jessup felt uncannily different. Marriage, instead 
of providing a refuge from herself, had finally revealed 
to her that she was tangibly above the plane on which 
Ivan’s mother moved. Marriage, instead of fusing 
her blood-stream with a better one, had shown her a 
sluggish and impoverished life-stream that seemed to 
be trickling malignly through hardened family arteries. 
Marriage, instead of strengthening her own doubtful 
position, had disclosed gullies and waste lands. 

While Jessup was in the midst of these contempla¬ 
tions, Ivan arrived. For forty-eight hours he had been 
tormented by the imperative responsibility of telling 
Jessup what he knew, and his face was bitten by worry. 
His eyes were grim and gloomy. 

“Your mother wants you to telephone her,” Jessup 
informed him. 


26 o 


JESSUP 

“When did she call up ?” he asked, grateful for some¬ 
thing else to talk about. 

“It must have been several hours ago. She wanted 
you to call her if you came in,” replied Jessup. 

Banning went to the telephone. 

“Hello, mother,” he said. “Diana says you wanted 
me to call you.” 

“Have you seen your lawyers?” asked Mrs. Banning 
abruptly. 

“Not yet.” 

“When do you intend to?” she demanded. 

“As soon as I get time. I’ve been frightfully busy. 
I hardly know where I’m at.” 

“Don’t you realize that this zction must be begun?” 

“Yes, of course, I realize it,” said Banning with 
utter weariness. 

“Then please get at it. Don’t let another day go 
by. Have you spoken to her?^* 

“Not yet.” 

“Aren’t you going to?” 

“Yes, I gave you my word that I would.” 

“When are you going to?” 

“To-night.” 

“Do it without fail,” implored Ivan’s mother. 
“There isn’t another moment to be lost. It’s madden¬ 
ing the way you dawdle along and let things drift. I 
should think you’d have more self-respect. It’s per¬ 
fectly stupid of you to delay another minute. As for 
frying to keep it all out of the newspapers, I don’t know 
'gbout that. I’m beginning to think that the repudia- 


26 i 


JESSUP 

tion ought to be made public. That may be the only 
way to shut people up.” 

Banning was listening to his mother in a sort of 
trance. When he hung up, he did not see Jessup in 
the room. He was glad to be alone for a moment. 
He went to his liquor cabinet for a drink. Then he 
sank his teeth into a cigar and began to smoke. 

When Jessup reentered, she found him staring fix¬ 
edly at the portrait. 

“You’ve been getting some good notices on your 
exhibit,” he said in a colorless voice. 

“Yes, the papers have been very generous. Have 
you had a chance to look in on it?” asked Jessup. 

“Not yet. I’ve been tied up in a knot. Many peo¬ 
ple there?” 

“Yes, quite a number.” 

Banning lapsed into silence. It had been an effort 
for him to talk. Again his eyes roved to the portrait. 

“Do you remember the time Dodge noticed some¬ 
thing about that picture of yours? A similarity to 
a voice teacher by the name of Canton?” he asked, 
unable to defer the issue any longer. Now that he 
had begun, the constraint was no longer in his tone. 

“Yes,” answered Jessup. 

“Dodge was right. That does happen to be Can¬ 
ton,” stated Banning with a sudden strictness in his 
voice. 

Jessup met his look squarely. “I think you must be 
mistaken,” she said quietly. 

“I happen to know that I’m not mistaken,” answered 
B annin g. “That isn’t Amos Jessup. That’s Canton, 



262 


JESSUP 

the voice teacher. Pm curious to know how you hap¬ 
pened to get hold of it.” 

“It was sent on to me.” 

“About how long has it been in your family?” 

“I can’t say. What makes you think it’s someone 
else?” 

“I don’t think so. I know it.” 

“Just what do you know?” 

Jessup listened in. silence to his recital of the facts 
that had been detailed to his mother. 

“I have a book here on voice culture,” finished Ban¬ 
ning, crossing to the bookshelves for a volume. “It 
contains a reproduction of it. Here it is. You can 
compare them yourself.” 

Jessup looked in amazement at an engraving of the 
familiar subject. 

“Yes, it’s the same picture,” she conceded. “But 
surely there is some mistake about it.” 

“There isn’t any mistake,” said Banning impatiently. 
“The author was a recognized authority—an old-timer. 
He was a contemporary of Canton. He knew him 
intimately.” 

Jessup felt as if the ground had been cut out from 
under her. A few hours ago it would have unnerved 
her. But she no longer felt dependent upon the struc¬ 
ture of pretense that she had reared. 

“Then my people must have been grossly deceived,” 
she said steadily. 

“Either that, or else I have been grossly deceived,” 
retorted Banning. 

“What do you mean?” 


JESSUP 263 

“I don’t mean about this picture. That’s only a 
detail. I can see how a mistake like that might be 
made. There was probably nothing to identify the 
picture. It isn’t even signed. It might have borne 
a resemblance to some ancestor of yours. Haven’t 
you any photograph of Amos Jessup?” 

‘‘No, I never saw one.” 

“Look here, Diana. This opens up a subject that 
has got to be threshed out. I don’t want to say any¬ 
thing to hurt you. But I’m afraid you’ve been labor¬ 
ing under some serious misapprehensions. To your 
absolute knowledge, was there ever an Amos Jessup?” 
asked Banning in a charitable voice. 

“I have naturally supposed so,” she answered. “But 
of course that’s going pretty far back.” She was 
determined to find out how much Ivan knew. 

“Yes. It’s going pretty far back. But let me ask 
you this. You say both your mother and your father 
died when you were a small girl?” 

“Yes.” 

“Where did you get your information about that 
St. Louis branch of your family?” 

“From my Grandfather Helman.” 

“The carpet weaver?” 

“Yes.” 

“So he’s the one who told you about your father’s 
people having been in the grain business in Missouri 
and Kansas?” 

A frown settled upon Jessup’s face. “Just what is 
the point of this cross-examination, may I ask? First 
it’s your mother who bombards me with questions. 


264 JESSUP, 

Then It’s you. What are you driving at? What are 
you trying to find out?” she asked crisply. 

“If that’s what Helman told you, he tells a different 
story now,” said Banning, watching Jessup’s face as 
he spoke. 

“You say he tells a different story now. To whom 
does he tell a different story now?” 

“To representatives who were sent to interview 
him.” 

“Whose representatives? Your mother’s?” 

“No. We can leave my mother out of this. My 
own representatives.” 

“So that’s It? Then you didn’t believe what I told 
you? You doubted my word? You thought I lied?” 

“No, it wasn’t that, Diana. But I had reasons to 
believe that your understanding of some of these things 
was not entirely correct. The whole thing was started 
by Dodge’s discovery about the picture. When he 
backed up his first Impression of It, and proved that he 
was right, you can see for yourself that I had to take 
some action.” 

“Dodge!” said Jessup with contempt. “Do you 
want to know the reason for his malicious meddling?” 

“I didn’t know he was prompted by malice,” said 
Banning with siffprise. 

“It was nothing but malice. I don’t suppose you 
know that this Dodge who posed as such a good friend 
of yours was making love to me?” 

“What!” exclaimed Banning. “He made love to 
you?” 

“Yes. He said everything He could to belittle you. 


iJESSUP 265 

Every time your back was turned, he made love to me.” 

“How could he make love to you if you didn’t let 
him?” demanded Banning angrily. 

“It amused me for a while to hear him rave,” said 
Jessup. “To see what a fool he could make of him¬ 
self. Finally I had to tell him what a blithering ass 
he was. This Is his revenge.” 

Banning stared at his wife In silence. “If that’s 
what he did, then why didn’t you tell me before?” 
There was a note of bluster In his voice. 

“Because I didn’t want to Interfere with your busi¬ 
ness relations. I didn’t want to destroy your confi¬ 
dence In him.” 

“Did you think It was fair to me?” asked Banning, 
letting his anger rise. “So that’s why he kept trailing 
us In the park? You liked him. That’s what you 
did. You were getting tired of me even then. You 
let this fellow make love to you because you liked It. 
You liked It, I tell you. How do I know what you 
let him do ? How do I know how far I can trust you ? 
My God, we haven’t been married a year. How do 
I know how many fellows you’ve let run after you?” 

Jessup looked at him pityingly during his outburst. 
“Is that what you think of me?” she^asked. 

“How do I know what to think of you? You tell 
me one thing. Someone else tells me another. Why 
wouldn’t I be suspicious? You tell me a big rigmarole 
about your people In St. Louis, and the records don’t 
show anything of the kind. Why did you conceal your 
name when you came to New York?” 


266 JESSUP 

“That’s exactly what I did not do,” said Jessup 
calmly. 

“You concealed the name ‘Helman,’ didn’t you?” 

“No, I didn’t conceal it. When I went on the stage, 
I simply dropped it.” 

“You knew ‘Jessup’ was your first name. Why did 
you try to lead me to believe it was your last name? 
That’s what I want to know.” 

Jessup looked at Banning without flinching. She 
said: “I think perhaps you know the answer to that 
question.” 

Her reply caused Banning’s anger to become min¬ 
gled with compassion. “Yes, your surmise is correct. 
I do happen to know the answer to that question. But 
do you?” he asked with an effort to temper and sub¬ 
due his tone. 

“I think I do,” said Jessup quietly. 

Her matter-of-fact reply was confusing to Banning. 
He said with the same studied and compassionate mild¬ 
ness: “I’m afraid you don’t understand what I mean. 
I don’t want to hurt you. But at the same time it is 
absolutely necessary for you to grasp certain facts. 
One is the fact of doubtful paternity.” 

“Yes,” answered Jessup, waiting for him to go on. 

Banning looked surprised. “You already know 
that?” he asked. 

“I do.” 

“Do you know where your mother was living prior 
to your birth?” 

“Yes, I know that, too.” 

“I don’t mean the city. I mean the place. The 


JESSUP 267 

kind of a house,” continued Banning, fairly blurting 
the ominous words in order to get them uttered. 

Jessup saw his gaze move away from her before he 
had finished what he was saying. She was silent for 
only a moment. During that moment of hesitation 
she realized that a month ago, a week ago, even a few 
hours ago she would have recognized this as the mo¬ 
ment to begin a piece of acting that she had secretly- 
and repeatedly rehearsed in anticipation of just this 
crisis. With exquisite care she had prepared the 
things to say and exactly how to say them. So thor¬ 
oughly and so painstakingly had she versed herself as 
to how to conduct herself if this crisis should ever 
arise, that she had felt able to enact her part of the 
scene with flawless accuracy and effect no matter when 
the cue might be given. 

And yet, now that that moment had come, she knew 
that she was changed; she knew that she did not have 
to put herself through any such performance. 

“I mean the place. The kind of house,” Banning 
was saying, blurting his words in order to get them 
spoken. 

“I know all about it,” answered Jessup without a 
sign of emotion. 

Banning, who had been in torture for the past two 
days at the prospect of having to tell her, could hardly 
credit her reply. Her unemotional disclosure that 
she already knew, left him in a peculiar state of be¬ 
wilderment, and among his emotions was that of dis¬ 
appointment. For so carefully had he prepared him¬ 
self to say what had to be said, and to season his pro- 


268' JESSUP 

nouncement with appropriate mercy, that it seemed to 
him that he had been cheated and defrauded of some¬ 
thing that was due him. 

His carefully prepared gentleness left him. A 
baffled scowl rose to his face. 

“You know all about it?” he asked acridly. 

Jessup nodded. 

“So you know all about it, do you?” he said, as if 
dazed by the information. 

“I do.” 

“How long have you known it?” he asked with ill- 
concealed resentment. 

“Since just before I left the Helmans.” 

The scowl on Banning’s face deepened. A snarl 
made its way into his voice. “So you knew it at the 
time we were married, did you? And I trusted you. 
And all the while you were lying to me. You were 
cooking up one big lie after another. By God, I don’t 
believe there’s a word of truth in you. You lied to 
me, and strung me along, and made a fool out of me. 
I don’t believe you know how to tell the truth.” Ban¬ 
ning pointed an accusing finger at the portrait, and 
exclaimed: “I’ll bet that picture was never in your 
family at all!” 

“No, it wasn’t until I bought it.” 

“Until you bought it I” thundered Banning. “That’s 
just what I suspected.” 

“Yes, and I picked the other one up on Sixth Ave¬ 
nue,” answered Jessup with the same unexcited, un¬ 
emotional calmness. 

“Then every move you’ve made has been a lie. 


JESSUP 269 

What a fool IVe been,” he groaned. “You knew all 
about this and still you had the nerve to go ahead and 
get yourself tied up to me. What did you do it for? 
What were you trying to do, disgrace me and every¬ 
one connected with me? Was that your scheme in 
getting married?” 

“No, I thought I was bettering myself.” 

“Bettering yourself F* 

“I thought I was improving my station in life,” 
added Jessup. 

“Well, what about my station? This marriage has 
got to be annulled!” exclaimed Banning fiercely. 

Jessup paid no attention to him. “I thought I was 
bettering myself and Improving my station,” she re¬ 
peated with irony. “But I didn’t know that I was 
marrying Into a family that was beneath me.” 

“You? With your history? You married into a 
family that was beneath you?” gasped Banning, look¬ 
ing at her incredulously. 

“I mean just what I say,” said Jessup steadily. 

There was a savage glow in Banning’s eyes. 

“Illegitimacy is a matter of circumstance, and not 
of blood,” said Jessup. “Blood isn’t illegitimate. 
And life Isn’t illegitimate. There’s better blood In me 
than there Is In you. I know It now. What happened 
here to-night proves It. I no longer question the blood 
that’s In me. I know what I can do and I know what 
I am. Do you think the lack of a name scares me 
any more? No, because I can make my own name. 
Do you think I need yours to carry me on up? No, 


270 JESSUP 

I can go farther and I can go higher than you can 
ever go.” 

Ivan rose and paced the floor. His rage, checked 
by the quiet conviction of Jessup’s words, had abated. 
He was listening to every word of the controlled flood 
of her statements. He was looking at the proud poise 
of her head, the flare of her nostrils, the rigid grace 
with which she confronted him. She stood before him 
at her full height, her sensitive shoulders thrown back, 
her white chest moving with her breath. Her face 
was luminous and her eyes shone. 

“If this discovery of yours has been a shock to you,” 
she continued in the same calm voice, “what do you 
.think the effect must have been upon me when I found 
iy put? How do you think it has felt to keep hiding 
ft, to be forever scheming to keep it submerged and 
out of sight? How do you think I felt when you came 
and I realized that I loved you? Do you think I 
didn’t shrink from the possibility of exposing you to 
the risks of exactly the thing that has happened? Do 
you think I entered lightly into marriage to you ? Have 
you forgotten how I resisted it? 

“Oh, I don’t claim that there weren’t some selfish 
motives mixed up in it,” Jessup went on earnestly. “I 
was ambitious, and I wanted social station. I was 
afraid of what might happen if I remained alone, for 
there were impulses in me that I didn’t trust. There 
was hot blood in me, and there were times when I was 
frightfully lonely. I wanted to feel more secure. I 
wanted to be esteemed and accepted. And I wanted 
a name. You don’t know what it is to want a name.” 


271 


JESSUP 

Again Jessup paused, and the listener, silenced by 
her recital, offered no reply. 

“Well, I accepted the risk,” continued Jessup. “I 
allowed you to accept your share of it. Pm sorry for 
you, sorry that you had to find this out. But someone 
had to share this risk with me, for it was unendurable 
to me alone. Someone had to share it with me; and it 
happened to be you. A thousand times when I thought 
of what might happen, I wished that I cared for you 
less.” 

Tears sprang to Banning’s eyes. 

“Oh, Diana!” he said with a sob. 

But Jessup stood immobile. “In a way, it’s too bad,” 
she said, still without a sign of emotion. “In another 
way, in a selfish way on my part, it’s the best thing that 
could have happened. It has shown me what’s in me. 
It has made it possible to compare myself with you, 
whom I used to consider my superior in so many things. 
Why, I stood in awe of you and the world you repre¬ 
sented. And I’ve found out that I could stand up 
under it and that you couldn’t stand up under it. It’s 
a good thing for me to know, because I know now what 
kind of blood is in me. If I don’t know who I am, at 
least I know what I am.” 

A new look had moved into Banning’s eyes as Jessup 
spoke. It was a look of involuntary respect. 

“Is that really the way you feel?” he asked, as if 
scarcely able to believe her. 

“I’ve tried to make it as clear as I know how.” 

“Well,” said Banning lugubriously, “I don’t blame 
you for hating me.” 


272; JESSUP 

' “I don't hate you,” answered Jessup. 

Banning gazed at her thoughtfully. “You’ve been 
in for a pretty raw deal all around. It’s the most 
unfortunate thing I ever heard of. But you’ve certainly 
acted like a brick. You’re the gamest girl I ever saw.” 

Jessup took a cigarette from a lacquered box and 
tapped one end of it against her palm. 

“You spoke of annulment proceedings,” she replied. 
i “That seems a brutal thing to do. There ought to 
be some better solution. Let’s not do anything rash. 
Let’s take more time and think things over,” said 
Banning unhappily. 

“No, it’s not a brutal thing to do. There isn’t any¬ 
thing else to do. Even if we wanted to remain 
together, there would be so much pressure from the 
outside that we should both be miserable. You have 
made a mistake that can only be corrected by removing 
the cause. The only way you can clear yourself is by 
getting rid of me. There’s nothing else to do.” 

Banning turned wretchedly. “But what will you do ?” 

“Pshaw! I shall be famous,” answered Jessup 
confidently. 


CHAPTER XXI 


Jessup’s passage was booked on the Celtic, sailing 
on January 27th. She had been commissioned to 
design the costumes for five Broadway productions 
scheduled for the following autumn. She was on her 
way to Naples, Tunis, Sofia and Dresden, and was 
counting upon at least a month in each of these places 
for a study of native costume, after which it was her 
intention to reside indefinitely in Paris if she liked it 
there. 

She had not seen Banning again since the night of 
their final clash. She had been served with the 
summons and complaint in his action to annul their 
marriage. She had glanced at the intricate legal 
phraseology of these documents with indifference. She 
had no intention of entering a defense. 

In the midst of her preparations for the voyage, 
Doris Banning dropped in unexpectedly at the apart¬ 
ment. 

^ “I heard you were going abroad,” said Ivan’s sister, 
“and I couldn’t bear to have you go without seeing you 
again. I didn’t know whether you would let me in or 
not, but I made up my mind to take a chance.” 

“I’m glad to see you,” said Jessup cordially. 

“I just wanted to tell you that I think my brother’s 
attitude is disgustingly mediaeval. It is inexcusable. 
He’s nothing but a cad.” 


273 


JESSUP 

“No, I can’t think of him in that way,” said Jessup. 
“It isn’t anything that he can be blamed for.” 

“You don’t mean to say you can ever forgive him?” 
demanded Doris incredulously. 

“It isn’t for me to forgive him. It isn’t a case 
for forgiveness. The discovery was inevitable, and 
his action as a result of that discovery was just as 
inevitable.” 

“Just the same, he has shown himself up. I’m 
ashamed of him, and I’ve told him so without mincing 
any words. I should think you would hate the sight of 
a Banning.” 

“The Bannings aren’t to blame,” interposed Jessup. 

“Neither are you I” exclaimed Doris with spirit. 
“It’s a crime to drive you out of the country like this.” 

“I’m not being driven out of the country. I’m going 
abroad on business, and just as soon as I feel like 
coming back, I’ll come back,” answered Jessup pleas¬ 
antly. 

“Good for you. You’ve got more pluck than all 
the Banning crowd put together. If Ivan had any 
such spirit as that, nothing could stop him. That 
holier-than-thou attitude of his makes me sick. And 
so does mother’s. Nothing would delight me more 
than to hear some first-class skeletons in our own closet 
begin to rattle. Oh, how I’d relish that! I’d be 
tempted to cry it from the roofs as a matter of poetic 
justice,” declared Doris. Her glance fell upon the pic¬ 
ture of Ganton. “What are you going to do with it?” 

“I couldn’t part with that,” put in Jessup. “I’m 
taking it along with me. Do you know, I actually got 
to believing that there was something intimate and 


JESSUP 275 

ancestral about It. There is something about it that 
makes it seem mine.” 

“You keep it,” commanded Doris. “It isn’t signed, 
is it? But, believe me, it’s a finer piece of work in 
every way than most of the junk that hangs on other 
people’s walls.” 

The day of sailing was near. The newspapers, 
having learned of her going, began sending reporters 
to Jessup to get the details of her plans. Half a dozen 
times in the past few years she had furnished a first-rate 
story, and some of them had made front-page features., 
Jessup, however, was declining steadily to be inter¬ 
viewed. The idea of publicity at this time irritated her,' 
But suddenly on the day before she was to leave, an 
irresistible sense of mischief took hold of her. She) 
had concocted a series of lies in order to protect her-* 
self in her contact with life, and her marriage'"was 
about to be annulled because of those lies. Why not 
concoct another string of lies to advance herself in the 
world? She would drive in a few more nails of pub¬ 
licity in order to fix her name more securely in public 
attention. Having lied disastrously, here was an 
opportunity to lie successfully. Instead of slipping 
quietly out of the country, she would sail with a blare 
of headlines. The comic side of it appealed to b^r^ 
That afternoon a crowd of reporters assembled at 
her apartment. Jessup received them with feverish 
gayety, and gave a rapid and succinct account of her 
plans. She told of the costumes she was about to 
design, and hinted that she had been engaged to do 
similar work for producers in Moscow and Vienna. 


276 JESSUP 

She gave a veiled account of a forthcomlrig gralid opera 
by a famous composer for which she was likewise to 
do the costumes. She recited the names of three or 
four Illustrious families In London and Paris at whose 
homes she had been Invited to be a guest. 

} Her Interview glistened with famous names. It 
Implied an Intimate acquaintance with a dozen European 
celebrities who had made recent visits to America. In 
answer to questions she glibly gave her Impressions of 
French and English personages whom she had never 
seen. 

! In reply to the usual volley of questions, she gave 
brisk and pungent views on careers for women, and on 
marriage, divorce, international politics, and fashions. 

Throughout the Interview, she was thinking of Ivan’s 
mother. She could see her reading accounts In to-mor¬ 
row’s newspapers. Well, mused Jessup, It was too bad 
thaf Ivan ’s mother should have been destined for so 
grievous a disappointment as the result of the marriage 
of her son. And so, as Jessup thought of her strenuous 
interview, she regretted nothing that she had said. The 
least she could do as a parting gift was to confirm Mrs. 
Banning’s belief that her daughter-in-law was the 
biggest liar In the world. 

Through the brownish air of the dry, January day, 
Jessup started for the dock. Her car was loaded with 
new steamer-trunks, bags, hat-boxes, and portfolios. 
Beside Jessup sat Nordahl, who, although he was still 
the busiest man on Broadway, had contrived to snatch 
.an hour to see her off on her voyage. 



JESSUP 277 

“It’s fine of you to come down to the ship with me,” 
Jessup was saying. 

The director talked in the tense, nervous monotone 
that characterized all his utterances. “You’re going 
to like It over there. I know. I’ve been across eight 
times. They’ve got a lot of things that we haven’t got. 
But they’re slow. My God, they’re slow. Slow as the 
itch. I couldn’t work over there. I’d go mad. I’d 
be a nut in no time.” 

“Yes, I dare say,” smiled Jessup. “I never saw 
anyone like you to keep people humping.” 

“That’s it exactly. They’ve got to hump. Or else 
they’ve got to get out. I can’t work with drones. 
They’ve got to keep moving. I’ve got to see results. 
That’s what I like about you. You move. You get 
somewhere. My God, how you used to dance for me. 
I could see there was something In you. But It wasn’t 
dancing. You were all right. But you didn’t belong 
back of the lights. Then I saw some of your sketches. 
Right away I knew what you ought to be doing. I told 
you. You did what I said. You began to study. You 
made good. You’re going right straight to the top.* 
I know. Nothing can stop you now.” 

Jessup’s stateroom was piled with flowers, steamer- 
baskets, steamer-boxes, telegrams, and other tokens of 
farewell. Salant had sent an enormous box of roses. 
Doris Banning had sent fruit and candy. But of all 
the people on Broadway and elsewhere In whose lives 
Jessup had figured, only Nordahl had found it con¬ 
venient to be on hand. Nordahl had been the first to 
show her any kindness during her early struggles in 


278 JESSUP 

New York; he had’taken time to go to her wedding; 
and here he was once more, after all the others had 
appeared and vanished. He had never made a senti¬ 
mental nuisance of himself, never had pried Into her 
affairs. Even now he did not ask why Banning was 
not here. 

“All visitors ashore!” called the deck stewards. 

“Good-by, Miss Jessup. God bless you,” said 
Nordahl. Then he kissed her hand and started rapidly 
away. 

Jessup waved to him as he hurried down the gang¬ 
plank to race back to his rehearsals. She would never 
forget his eyes, his impersonal devotion, his unfailing 
loyalty at times when she needed him. 

Standing at the rail of the ship, luxuriously shielded 
by her sable coat, Jessup watched the Jersey ferries, 
and contrasted her arrival In New York with her exit. 
She recalled the Immigrant woman holding a baby 
tightly in her arms. She recalled the alarming beauty 
of New York looming before her, the unforgettable 
chant of its inscrutable towers and spires, the incredible 
facades that seemed to talk to her In unintelligible 
whisperings. As she gazed again at the rhythmic 
Immensity of the skyline, she reflected that she had 
fathomed some of its secrets and had finally been able 
to peer with keener sight into the cloudy depths of her 
own soul. 

The great oil-burner was moving down through the 
harbor without a throb from her enormous engines, 
and soon a sweep of cold air struck her decks from the 


JESSUP 279 

steel-blue waters of the North Atlantic. The steeples 
and skyscrapers receded-into soft and tenuous outlines. 
Fewer ships were in sight, and Ambrose Lightship was 
discovered plunging violently at anchor. Jessup did 
not know what it was, but as she watched it, the lurching 
craft reminded her of herself, plunging and rearing 
and straining at her fate. 

She went below and sank into a huge chair in the 
lounge. Luncheon was announced, but she did not stir. 
She was watching the passengers as they came and 
went, wondering about them, speculating as to their 
lives. She picked out some who she thought were 
doubtlessly important figures in New York, the play¬ 
ground of genius. 

Among them she discovered a familiar figure. He 
entered the lounge with a stiff and forbidding stride. 
His long, slender cheeks, his stern mouth, and frigid 
eyes were features that she had not forgotten. Those 
eyes had recently bent pondering glances at some of 
the sketches in her exhibition. A feeling of diffidence 
and dismay had overwhelmed her, and she had begged 
him not to look at any more of her work. He had 
told her that she had talent, had deigned to criticize, 
and she had listened hungrily to his judgment. 

The eminent artist came toward her. Jessup felt 
the same inexplicable agitation that she had felt in his 
presence before. Now she was in the path of his 
glance and for a fraction of a second his glance rested 
upon her. But he strode past without speaking. He 
did not remember her. 

Jessup saw him again from time to time, gravely 


28 o 


JESSUP 

pacing the deck, apparently lost in contemplation. As 
she lay in her deck-chair, wrapped in steamer rugs, she 
would watch him approach and pass. Once, when he 
looked at her, she was on the point of speaking to him , 
and recalling their meeting at the gallery; but in his 
eyes was a look of such distance and detachment that it 
seemed almost an affront to break in upon the privacy 
of his pondering. 

He was the only passenger on board who interested 
her particularly. She had seen numerous portraits from 
his brush; she remembered some of them in surprising 
detail; and these distinguished portraits kept revolving 
in continuous procession through her mind. Her own 
sketches seemed trivial compared with the solid depths 
and gorgeous surfaces of his paintings. It seemed good 
to be a passenger on the same ship with him. 

She would watch for him to come round the bend of 
the promenade deck, but so unobtrusively did she watch 
for him that he was in no wise aware of it. Jessup no¬ 
ticed that like herself he was alone during most of the 
journey. As she studied the remoteness and self- 
sufficiency of the taciturn figure, loneliness assumed a 
fascinating dignity in her eyes, and it came to her that 
she would never again dread being alone. 

When the ship had docked at Cherbourg, and the 
passengers were going ashore, Jessup caught a final 
glimpse of him. Again his brooding eyes rested for 
a moment upon her, and Jessup, obeying a sudden 
impulse, waved him a smiling good-by. The other 
bowed gravely, but Jessup knew that he did not 
remember her. 






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